Bahrain human rights activists concerned about death sentences in ‘torture’ case

Human rights experts in Bahrain are concerned that a court has upheld the death sentences in a case in which the torture of the defendants has been exposed, Anadolu Agency has reported.

The two defendants were convicted of killing a police officer in a bomb explosion in 2014.

The authorities in Bahrain arrested Mohamed Ramadhan and Hussain Moosa in February 2014 and they were convicted ten months later.

In March 2015 they were sentenced to death. The High Criminal Court of Appeal upheld the ruling and the Court of Cassation confirmed it in November 2015.

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However, the Special Investigation Unit affiliated with the Office of Public Prosecution and the Bahraini Ministry of Justice recommended that the trial be reconsidered after new evidence was revealed regarding the defendants’ claims that they had been tortured.

The Court of Cassation suspended the death sentences in October 2018 but the Court of Appeal upheld them last month.

The trial sparked an outcry from local and international rights groups and organisations, such as Amnesty International, which described it in January as a “grossly unfair trial that relied heavily on torture-tainted ‘confessions’.”