Mohammed Ramadan poses for a photo with his son in a restaurant in Bahrain. (Family photo by Zeinab Ibrahim)
BEIRUT — The highest court in the tiny Persian Gulf country of Bahrain upheld two death sentences Monday, despite evidence of torture in extracting a confession implicating both men.
Husain Moosa, 34, and Mohammed Ramadan, 37, were sentenced to death in 2014 after being charged with targeting police officers with a bomb, killing one of them. Their sentences were overturned following an internal review of allegations that the men had been tortured and sexually assaulted.
The Court of Cassation on Monday reinstated the death sentences after reviewing all the evidence again. “The reasons behind its ruling,” prosecutors said in a statement Monday, “are that the injuries in the medical reports did not coincide and are not in keeping with police procedures or the public prosecutor, and had no effect on the confessions that were born out of conscious free will, without any force on the defendants.”
The decision marked an abrupt reversal after the same court had earlier overturned the death sentences.
“I heard the decision and choked on my words,” said Ramadan’s wife, Zeinab Ibrahim. “I am at a loss as to what to tell my children, who are awaiting their father’s return.”
Following complaints by Ibrahim and human rights groups, as well as pressure from the British government, Bahrain’s Special Investigations Unit reviewed the claims and concluded that physical duress might have been used in extracting a confession. The high court then overturned the sentence.
But in January, a lower Bahraini court reconsidered the case and reinstated the death sentences, saying that the convictions were not solely based on the defendants’ statements and that the abuse occurred after the confession.
Moosa and Ramadan are Shiite Muslims who participated in the pro-democracy protests that engulfed Bahrain in 2011 during the Arab Spring uprisings after facing years of discrimination by the Sunni-controlled government.
“To Western partners, Bahrain promises human rights reform. To citizens, it threatens that if you speak out, you will be imprisoned, tortured and convicted of crimes you did not commit,” said Maya Foa, director of Reprieve,
a London-based human rights group. “These unlawful death sentences are intended as a warning to would-be dissidents.”
Now, the only remaining hope for Ramadan and Moosa is a royal pardon.
“International and Bahraini rights organizations will pen an open letter to the king urging him to correct this grave miscarriage of justice and commute Ramadan and Moosa’s death sentences,” said Aya Majzoub, Human Rights Watch’s Bahrain and Lebanon researcher.
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