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Bahrain: Four protesters sentenced to death by firing squad – Medics in peril of same fate

by Courtesy

Bahrain: Four protesters sentenced to death by firing squad
Human rights activists claim men convicted of killing two policemen did not receive a fair trial
Protesters in Bahrain in March 2011

Four anti-government protesters in Bahrain were sentenced to death on Thursday by a military court over the killing of two policemen when violence erupted in the capital last month.

The ruling means the four men could be the first to face a firing squad in Bahrain since 2007. It has dismayed human rights activists who claim the men did not receive a fair trial, and the British Foreign Office urged Bahrain “to ensure that due process is carefully and transparently followed in all cases, particularly where severe penalties are proposed”.

The defendants’ lawyer, Mohammed al-Tajer, was arrested in the runup to the hearing, and Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, said his replacement may not have had enough time to prepare for such a serious case. He added the decision to try the civilians in a military court which is ultimately controlled by Bahrain’s ruling family breached norms of international human rights.

The condemned men were named as Ali Abdullah Hassan al-Singees, Qasim Hasan Matar Ahmad, Saeed Abduljalil Saeed, and Abdulaziz Abdulridha Ibrahim Husain. Three other men, Isa Abdullah Kadhem Ali, Sayyed Sadiq Ali Mahdi and Husain Jaafar Abdulkareem, were sentenced to life in prison over the deaths of the two policemen.

Rajab said the men were well-known anti-government protesters from villages in Bahrain, and he believed they were targeted because of that. They all pleaded not guilty on charges of premeditated murder of government employees.