(ABNA24.com) Ahmad al-Mullali, 24, and Ali Hakim al-Arab, 25, were executed at Jaw prison, south of the Bahraini capital Manama, on Friday after private meetings with their families.
The Public prosecutor's office announced that al-Malali and al-Arab were put to death on charges of possessing firearms and killing a police officer. The opposition al-Wefaq society condemned the executions as extrajudicial.
The Bahraini regime carried out the death penalties despite fierce protests by the United Nations and several human rights groups and
The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights said that the families of the two had received phone calls from Jaw prison for private visits - a procedure that usually precedes execution.
Reports had also been emerged of an increased security presence around the jail.
Bahraini law requires death row inmates to receive a family visit on the same day that they are killed.
Mullali and Arab were arrested separately in February 2017.
They were convicted of "terrorism offenses" and sentenced them to death in January 2018 during a mass trial marred by allegations of torture and serious due process violations.
The Bahraini Court of Cassation upheld the death penalties against the two men in May 2019.
Reports said that King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah ratified the verdict.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the Bahraini king to immediately revoke the executions and spare the two young men from "such a cruel death.”
“If the executions are indeed imminent, then the king has committed a grave injustice by ratifying the death sentences of the two men despite the allegations of torture and other serious due process concerns,” said Lama Fakih, acting Middle East director at HRW. “He should right the wrong by immediately revoking the death sentences.”
Additionally, Amnesty International said that al-Malali and al-Arab had been tortured in custody through electric shocks and beatings.
“If the Bahraini authorities go through with these executions it would be an utterly shameful show of contempt for human rights. The death penalty is an abhorrent assault on the right to life and the utmost cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Its use is appalling in all circumstances, but it is all the more shocking when it is imposed after an unfair trial in which the defendants were tortured to confess,” had said Lynn Maalouf, Middle East research director at Amnesty International.
“Bahrain’s authorities must immediately halt all plans to carry out these executions. These two men could be dead within 24 hours. Bahrain’s international allies, primarily the USA and the UK, must speak out today and make a strong call on the Bahraini authorities to stop these imminent executions and end their use of the death penalty," she had added.
Moreover, Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, had issued a last-minute appeal to stop the imminent execution of the two Bahraini inmates.
“The authorities in Bahrain must immediately halt any plans to execute these men, annul the death sentences against them and ensure they are retried in accordance with international law and standards,” she said.
Since February 2011, Bahraini people have been holding peaceful protest rallies regularly, demanding that the Al Khalifah family relinquish power and let a just system representing all citizens be established.
They have also been complaining about widespread discrimination against the country's Shia majority.
Manama has responded to the demonstrations with an iron fist. The authorities have detained rights campaigners, broken up major opposition political parties, revoked the nationality of several pro-democracy activists and deported those left stateless.
In March, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were deployed to assist Bahrain in its crackdown.
Source: abna24.com, Staff, July 27, 2019
Bahrain executes men tortured and convicted in mass trial
The Kingdom of Bahrain has executed two men who were convicted of terrorism charges in a mass trial after being subjected to torture. Five UN experts had appealed to Bahrain to halt the executions of Ali al-Arab (25) and Ahmed al-Malali (24) due to “serious concerns” they were coerced into making confessions and did not receive a fair trial.
A third man, convicted of murder in a separate trial, was also executed.
Since 2012, the UK government has spent more than £5 million on technical assistance to Bahrain, including funding UK-based bodies to train Bahraini institutions implicated in human rights abuses.
Following last night’s executions, there are now 23 people on Bahrain’s death row. Of these, six have exhausted all legal remedies and are at imminent risk of execution, including Maher Abbas al-Khabbaz, a hotel bellboy tortured into making a false confession.
Two other men, Mohamed Ramadhan and Husain Moosa, are currently being retried on terrorism charges carrying the death penalty, after their convictions were quashed last year due to credible evidence they had been tortured into making confessions and had not received a fair trial. The next hearing in their retrial is on September 4.
Reprieve’s Deputy Director Harriet McCulloch said: “Last night’s executions demonstrate, once again, Bahrain’s callous disregard for international standards of due process. Ali al-Arab and Ahmed al-Malali were tortured into making confessions, and convicted in an inherently unfair mass trial.
"The UK Government has spent millions of pounds of public money in Bahrain, providing support to a criminal justice system that continues to torture and execute people following unjust trials. It is too late for Ali al-Arab and Ahmed al-Malali, but British officials must now do everything in their power to prevent the execution of Maher al-Khabbaz, and ensure that Mohamed Ramadhan and Husain Moosa receive a genuinely fair trial.”
Source: Reprieve, Staff, July 27, 2019
Bahrain executes 3 men the day after US reinstates federal death penalty
Human rights groups have condemned the execution of 3 men in Bahrain on Saturday.
3 men were executed by firing squad in Bahrain on Saturday morning, according to the kingdom's state news agency.
The move came days after the United States announced it would be reinstating the federal death penalty for the 1st time in nearly 2 decades.
The executions were confirmed by Bahrain's Advocate General and chief of anti-crime prosecution, Ahmed al Hammadi, Bahrain News Agency (BNA) said.
The men were convicted in 2 separate cases by the High Criminal Court after each investigation from Bahrain's Public Prosecutor called for them to receive the maximum sentence, BNA said.
Bahrain's Public Prosecutor said that 2 of the executed men were convicted of "joining a terrorist group, committing murders, and possessing explosives and firearms to carry out terror acts."
There were 58 other individuals accused in the case, 19 of whom were sentenced to life in prison, according to BNA. 2 were acquitted, it said.
2 of the men, Ali al-Arab and Ahmed al-Malali were sentenced to death by the court and the rulings were upheld by the Court of Appeals and the Court of Cessation.
In February 2017, the pair were arrested and sentenced "in a mass trial marred by allegations of torture and serious due process violations," according to a Human Rights Watch report.
For months, human rights groups have called for an examination of the circumstances around the men's sentencing and for the Bahrain government to halt al-Arab and al-Malali's executions.
In May, a group of United Nations human rights experts said there were "serious concerns" that the pair were "coerced into making confessions through torture and did not receive a fair trial."
During the arrest, al-Malali was reportedly shot in his hand. Two bullets were allegedly only removed from his hand 23 days later, according to the UN statement.
Before the conviction, al-Arab was "reportedly forcibly disappeared for a month," the UN statement said.
Al-Malali was charged with "possession of firearms, membership in a terrorist cell and the alleged killing of a security officer," according to the UN statement.
Al-Arab was charged with "killing a police officer, firing on a security patrol and injuring one of its officers, assisting in an attempted prison escape, and possession of firearms," the UN statement said.
The men were "allegedly prevented from attending their trial, sentenced to the death penalty in absentia and stripped of their nationality, which was later reinstated," according to the UN statement.
They were both were reportedly tortured and forced to sign confessions of their crimes it said.
"The 2 individuals should have never been convicted on the basis of what appears to be seriously flawed trials. Executions in these conditions would amount to arbitrary executions," the UN experts said.
On Friday, Agnes Callamard, the UN's Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions issued a last-minute push to halt their executions.
"I remind Bahrain that the only thing that distinguishes capital punishment from an arbitrary execution is full respect for the most stringent due process and fair trial guarantees," Callamard said in a statement.
The third man executed on Saturday had been convicted of killing and dismembering an imam and subsequently sentenced to death in a unanimous decision by the court, according to BNA.
A 'green light'
Prominent Bahraini human rights defender Maryam al-Khawaja told CNN on Saturday that Bahrain's "justice system -- if you can call it that -- is a main tool of silencing dissent."
Rights groups and human rights defenders like al-Kahwaja have long criticized Bahrain for its crackdown on anti-government protests and dissent.
Al-Khawaja added that it's no coincidence that Bahrain's move to execute the men came shortly after the US announced it would bring back the federal death penalty.
A statement from the Embassy of the Kingdom of Bahrain in Washington D.C. on Friday read: "Just as capital punishment is permitted in the United States, the Kingdom of Bahrain allows judges to impose death sentences in cases of serious crimes..."
Al-Khawaja said, "We have seen this before."
"A lot of times you will see that Bahrain likes to feel they are safe when they are about to commit violations. So they look to their allies to make sure they aren't going to be held accountable," she said.
"When one country commits a human rights violation, and if they don't face international consequences, then you see another country doing the same," she added, saying that Bahrain saw the US' announcement as a "green light."
Source: CNN, Staff, July 27, 2019
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde