MOI Crimes of torture murder, denials and impunity – Yousef Mowali autopsy tells truth beyond the grave

Report exclusively obtained by Al Jazeera says 23-year-old had been electrically tortured before drowning in January.

Autopsy finds torture behind Bahrain drowning
Matthew Cassel – 18 May, 2012 – Al Jazeera

On most mornings Yousef Mowali would leave his home near Bahrain’s international airport to go for a stroll. The 23-year-old had been diagnosed with schizophrenia a few years earlier and liked walking, both for exercising and relaxing.

On January 11, Mowali left for his morning walk and never returned.

Police said they found Mowali’s body floating in the water on January 13 in the Amwaj area, not far from his family’s home in Muharraq. A state doctor reported the cause of death as drowning and ruled out signs of violence.

However, Al Jazeera has exclusively obtained a report from a second autopsy performed by an independent forensic pathologist that concludes Mowali was electrically tortured and unconscious when he drowned.

If true, Mowali’s death would be the first of a person in police custody since the government promised reforms, following the release of a report by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), which looked at the early months of unrest surrounding last year’s pro-democracy uprising.

The government-sponsored commission found that Bahrain’s Interior Ministry and national security agency employed “a systematic practice of physical and psychological mistreatment, which in many cases amounted to torture” during the early months of the crackdown in 2011.

BICI also reported five deaths as a result of police torture. Mowali’s death could be the sixth – and an indication that the mistreatment of prisoners in Bahrain has not stopped, despite the government’s promises. …more