Mohammed Ramadhan and Hussein Moosa

BAHRAIN: COURT REIMPOSES DEATH PENALTY FOR TWO PRO-DEMOCRACY ACTIVISTS

January 9, 2020:

Bahrain’s top criminal court has reimposed the death penalty on two pro-democracy activists using “false confessions” obtained under torture, rights groups said on 8 January 2020.
Mohammed Ramadhan, 37, and Hussein Moosa, 33, were leading figures during the Bahraini protests of 2011, which were brutally crushed with Saudi and Emirati support.
The pair were arrested in 2014, accused of killing a security officer and attempting to kill people “through terrorist bombing”.
In October 2018, the Court of Cassation overturned previous rulings against Ramadhan and Moosa based on evidence that included a medical report. The Court of Cassation then asked for the death sentences to be reviewed.
However on 8 January the High Criminal Court of Appeals upheld the previous sentencing.
The verdicts were scheduled on Christmas Day, but after pressure from rights groups, who have highlighted Manama's propensity to hand out such sentences during holidays in the West, the decision was postponed until 8 January.
The case now moves back to the Court of Cassation, Bahrain's highest judicial authority. If that court approves the decision, Ramadhan and Moosa will face execution.
Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), said the “ruling is nothing short of a political assassination and a total mockery of justice”.
He added that Ramadhan and Moosa “had their death sentences confirmed despite compelling evidence that they were tortured", which he said "lays bare the corruption of Bahrain’s judiciary".