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Reprieve: UK Involved in Execution of Al-Samie, Mushaima and Al-Singace

2017-01-16 - 9:05 p

Bahrain Mirror- Exclusive: Reprieve commented on the execution of Ali Al-Singace, Abbas Al-Samei and Sami Mushaima in a statement it published on its website on the Internet, indicating UK's complicity in the crime.

Maya Foa, director of international human rights group Reprieve, said: "It is nothing short of an outrage - and a disgraceful breach of international law - that Bahrain has gone ahead with these executions. The death sentences handed to Ali, Sami and Abbas were based on ‘confessions' extracted through torture, and the trial an utter sham."

"It would be shameful if the UK continued to support Bahrain's security apparatus and Ministry of Interior in the face of such terrible abuses. The British Government must urgently review its close relations with the Kingdom, and make clear that it condemns these appalling crimes," Foa added.

She indicated that "The execution of these torture victims was made possible by various actors in Bahrain's criminal justice system, and the UK is providing assistance to all of them. In the last four years, the UK government has paid more than 5 million pounds to train Bahraini police officers, prosecutors, judges, prison guards in the death row prison where these men were held, and a supposedly ‘independent' torture watchdog which declared one of these men was lying about his torture allegations without ever conducting a medical examination."

Reprieve also talked about the UK role in helping Bahrain reform its human rights record since protests swept the Gulf kingdom in 2011, highlighting that it has evidence that this aid program failed to protect the three men from torture and execution, and actually contributed to their abuse.

Documents obtained by Reprieve, and reported in the Observer today, reveal that Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons helped plan inspections of custody facilities in Bahrain, including the CID station where all three men were tortured (both before and after the inspection.) The six-page inspection report failed to mention their allegations of torture.

Hundreds of prison guards at the death row jail where the executed men were detained have been trained by Northern Ireland Co-operation Overseas (NI-CO) that also trained the Ombudsman and a Special Investigations Unit, which rejected Mr Al-Samea's torture complaint without conducting a proper investigation.

Reprieve concluded saying that there are now concerns about two other men on Bahrain's death row who are also at imminent risk of execution, Mohammed Ramadan and Husain Moosa. Both say they were tortured into providing false confessions at the same police station as the three men who were executed today.

Arabic Version


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