Bahrain Mirror: Refugee footballer Hakeem Al-Araibi, who was locked up in Bangkok after Bahraini officials pursued him over vandalism charges, urged Australia's Foreign Minister Marise Payne to speak out against the sentences.

"As an Australian citizen who would not forget the fight of Australia and all the Australian community to save me from an imminent danger that resembles what these men faced and still facing behind the bars in Bahrain, I would like to ask you to, please condemn, publicly and obviously, sentencing these men to death and demand justice for them and their families," Mr. Al-Araibi wrote in a letter addressed to Ms Payne. 

Bahrain's top court has upheld death sentences against two men convicted of murdering a police officer after hearing the case for the second time following allegations of torture in custody.

That move was condemned by Amnesty International, which said the trial relied on "confession extracted through torture".

The Court of Cassation, the kingdom's highest court, in 2015 confirmed the death sentences but then overturned them after the emergence of a previously undisclosed medical report.

According to the group Human Rights Watch, the report appeared to corroborate claims the detainees had been tortured to force them to confess to fabricated charges.

Arabic Version