Human Rights Defenders Sentencing Planned Tomorrow in Court held by those who should be tried for Crimes Against Humanity

Updates about the trial of prominent oppositional leaders and Human Rights defenders

Update – 22 May 2011 – BCHR

At the hearing of the prominent 21 activists, Lieutenant Isa Sultan was brought as a witness. Isa Sultan is the person in charge of the case and investigations. According to people present at the hearing, he was sweating and appeared very nervous. He said that the defendants were working in coordination with Iran as they all followed Velayat-Al-Faqih and wanted an Islamic Republic. He also said that they received payments of “Khums” which is Islamic taxation. The lawyer asked him how he knew this if there were checks or such, and he responded that they received it all in cash and then used it to buy gas and car tires for the youth to burn on the streets. He then said that the defendants were receiving directions from Hezbullah who told them they must achieve a constitutional monarchy.

Two other witnesses were then questioned who were in charge of the arrest of AbdulJalil AlMuqdad and Hassan Mushaima. The first person was Nawaf Aldoseri and another person who said that they conducted the arrests in a legal manner. When they were about to question Bader Ghaith (the person in charge of Abdulhadi Alkhawaja’s arrest and named as a top torturer by several victims during previous cases) the lawyer asked that the other 3 witnesses be brought for questioning. Salah Alkhawaja’s wife immediately identified Bader AlGhaith as being the person who beat her when arresting her husband and sexually harassing her. The court was adjourned till Wednesday the 25th of this month.

During the last hearing the judge ordered that the detainees be taken out from solitary confinement, but many of them remain in solitary confinement. In the other cases, security personnel had brought a mattress into the cells of the detainees where they were held in solitary confinement and an Indian or Philipino prisoner who have criminal charges to stay in their cells with them. The detainees are not able to even communicate with them due to the language barrier.

When the hearing was over families were told that nobody would be given visitation rights today but were later on called back in. Abdulhadi Alkhawaja and his younger brother Salah (accused in the same case) were seated together and the visit lasted for around 40 minutes. The information below was taken from Abdulhadi Alkhawaja.

– – He is still in solitary confinement and some of the detainees had Asian inmates brought into the cells with them which didn’t really help with the solitary confinement problem since communication with them is impossible due to the language barrier.

– – In the hospital after his operation they had his eyes constantly covered, had chained his legs and one of his arms so that he couldn’t move and had left only one arm free for the IV line. He remained like that for 6 days and they regularly came in to insult and threaten him while he was in this condition. They kept telling him that they had arrested his eldest daughter Zainab, had raped her and were keeping her in a prison in Saudi. …more