King Hamad creates review panels to uphold bogus sentences in lue of dismissed verdicts or fair and impartial trials as brutal crackdown intenisifies

Bahrain creates judicial panel to review protest cases
2January, 2012 – CNN

(CNN) — Bahrain’s top court announced Monday that it is creating a judicial panel to review some military court verdicts related to protests last year, the state news agency said.

“A new judicial body comprising a number of judges from the civil courts shall be created in order to review nonappealable verdicts issued in favor of conviction by national safety courts according to international principles of the right to undergo a fair court trial and to access a lawyer for assistance in order to achieve the principles of fair justice,” said Sheikh bin Rashid Al Khalifa, the Supreme Judicial Council’s deputy chairman and president of the Court of Cassation.

He was quoted by the state-run Bahrain News Agency.

The new judicial body will review nonappealable convictions pertaining to the freedom of expression but not those related to incitement of violence, it said.

The judicial body will then submit the cases to the Supreme Judicial Council “in order to take appropriate actions,” it said.

The announcement came a day after witnesses said hundreds of mourners walked the streets of Sitra, south of the capital, behind the coffin carrying a 16-year-old boy who was killed during protests on Saturday. “We will sacrifice our souls and blood for you, martyr,” many of the mourners chanted. Some carried the country’s flag. A few held a red banner that read “Down with Hamad,” a reference to King Hamad al-Khalifa.

Clashes also occurred Sunday in Sitra between protesters and security forces who shot tear gas at them, injuring several people, witnesses said.

On Sunday, the news agency reported that 11 “saboteurs” were arrested after legal proceedings related to an attack Friday on police in Nuwaidrat, a village located a few miles southwest of Sitra. …more