The Bahrain Forum for Human Rights (BFHR) said in a statement that the Bahraini authorities exploit their foreign differences with Qatar to mislead justice and bring malicious charges against former MP in the resigned Al-Wefaq parliamentary bloc, Sheikh Hassan Isa. The BFHR added that the security authorities leaked to the official media forged documents that were not brought up previously in the case - as an evidence fabricated by the Public Prosecution - in the trial of Sheikh Hassan Isa. The BFHR pointed out that those documents were not in the indictment, the prosecution evidence, or the subsequent verdict, and they date back to before the events of February 14, 2011, when Sheikh Isa was an MP in the third legislative chapter. "The name of Sheikh Hassan Isa as well as other activists were dragged into the case subject of his trial in spite of the absence of material evidence that could confirm their association with the incident,” the BFHR said, explaining that “Sheikh Hassan Isa was accused of funding some of the families of those accused in the Sitra bombing in an adaptation far from the law, and based on speculations and security information – described by the prosecution as confidential – that were not presented to the court, lack accuracy and credibility, and do not lead to certainty of the conviction.” “With regard to arbitrary arrest and detention, Sheikh Hassan Isa was arrested from Bahrain International Airport based on investigations and information and not material evidence, without the permission of the Public Prosecution; and he was arrested without being informed of the reasons for the arrest,” the BFHR further said. “This means that the investigations that preceded the arrest and the interrogation of the accused did not enjoy the seriousness to acquire the legal procedures that follow, thus, what happened to Sheikh Hassan Isa is arbitrary arrest and violation of the right to freedom,” the BFHR added. The BFHR was surprised that after the verdict was issued against Sheikh Hassan Isa, a new charge has been brought up and is being employed within a clearly malicious political context, in which the Gulf-Qatari crisis is exploited to pressure the national opposition and tarnish its image. "The trial proceedings and documents revealed the lack of seriousness of the investigations, especially that the information of the investigating officer was vague, incomplete and does not lead to a certainty that there is evidence of conviction, which leads to the conclusion that it is invalid along with its resulting procedures, whether they were the procedures of arrest or the procedures of the interrogation with Sheikh Hassan Isa as well as the rest of the defendants,” the BFHR added. "The Bahraini authorities have resorted more than once to exploiting their foreign differences in fabricating a number of malicious cases against activists and citizens because of their dissenting political views, in order to mislead justice and distort the image of the opposition, political activists and human rights defenders," the BFHR concluded. Bahrain Forum for Human Rights 8/8/2017 |