(AhlulBayt News Agency) - The executions of the three men, aged 21 to 42, in the early hours of Sunday were the first to be carried out in Bahrain since 2010 and the first time that the death penalty has been carried out on Bahraini citizens since 1996.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson responded to the killings by firing squad by issuing a statement which re-stated Britain’s opposition to the death penalty but stopped short of an explicit condemnation of the executions. Mr Johnson said that he had raised the issue with the Bahraini authorities.
Britain has increasingly close links with the small Persian Gulf state and late last year Prince Charles opened a new Royal Navy base financed by the Bahraini authorities.
Campaigners condemned Mr Johnson’s response as “woefully inadequate”, pointing out that Britain has spent £5m since 2012 on programmes to assist an overhaul of Bahrain’s heavily-criticised criminal justice system and improve its human rights record.
The assistance includes British expert help for a torture watchdog which dismissed claims from the men executed this weekend that they suffered multiple beatings, including electrocution and sexual assault, prior to signing documents confessing to a 2014 bomb attack which killed three police officers – two Bahraini and an officer from the United Arab Emirates.
Human rights activists claim the men – Ali al-Singace, 21, Abbas al-Samea, 27, and 42-year-old Sami Mushaima – underwent a sham trial and, in the case of al-Samea, were convicted despite an alibi from the school where he taught.
Maya Foa, a director at human rights charity Reprieve, said: “The UK is one of Bahrain’s biggest backers – last year Boris Johnson’s department oversaw £2m of support to the kingdom’s prisons and wider criminal justice system. Unfortunately, the Bahraini bodies trained by the UK failed to properly investigate torture allegations by the men who were executed.
“The Government should immediately suspend its involvement with Bahrain’s criminal justice system and make clear to the kingdom’s leaders that the UK unequivocally condemns its actions.”
Manama has given a heavy-handed security response to peaceful popular protests, which first began in early 2011. The clampdown has cost scores of lives. Later during the popular uprising, the regime called in Saudi and Emirati reinforcements to help it muffle dissent.
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