The Bar Human Rights Committee has sent an open letter to the King of Bahrain, calling for an immediate halt to the planned execution of two prisoners whose convictions are widely believed to have been secured through torture.
Husain Ali Moosa and Mohamed Ramadan both face imminent execution, despite evidence that their trial was deeply flawed: both convictions were based on disputed confessions, alleged to have been extracted under torture, while the defendants’ access to lawyers and medical examiners was severely restricted.
BHRC’s intervention follows criticism of Bahrain’s treatment of prisoners, including a formal expression of concern by five UN Special Rapporteurs in 2014, and despite the 2011 Bahrain International Commission of Inquiry, which confirmed the Bahraini government’s systematic use of torture, and promised to reform its system of detention.
BHRC Chairperson Kirsty Brimelow QC said:
“BHRC is deeply concerned by continuing and persistent allegations of mistreatment of detainees in Bahrain and convictions based upon disputed confessions which trial courts have failed to investigate properly or at all.
BHRC calls on Bahrain to renounce the death penalty, and in particular to suspend or commute these sentences.
Furthermore, we urge the UK Government, given its opposition to the death penalty and its knowledge of these individual cases, to make representations to the Bahrain Government to have these sentences set aside or commuted.”
