Iraq militia threatens king of Bahrain following state execution

An armed Iraqi militia has threatened King of Bahrain Hamad Bin Issa Al-Khalifa in the wake of the execution of opposition Shia activists Ahmed Malali and Ali Al-Arab, Al-Khaleej Online reported yesterday.

Secretary-General of the Master of Martyrs Brigades in Iraq, Abu Alaa Al-Walai, said in a statement that “the hands of the Mujahideen reached those who were stronger and more steadfast than the Bahrain regime.”

Al-Walai said in the statement, which was posted on the group’s official website: “We know which hands steer you and who encourages you: it is the force of pride and arrogance.”

Bahrain executed three men by firing squad on Saturday morning, the state news agency reported.

Bahrain’s public prosecutor said that two of the executed men were convicted of “joining a terrorist group, committing murders, and possessing explosives and firearms to carry out terror acts.”

Al-Arab and Malali were arrested in February 2017 and sentenced “in a mass trial marred by allegations of torture and serious due process violations,” according to a Human Rights Watch report.

READ: Iran condemns execution of 2 Shias in Bahrain 

In May, a group of United Nations human rights experts said there were “serious concerns” that the pair were “coerced into making confessions through torture and did not receive a fair trial.”

The men were “allegedly prevented from attending their trial, sentenced to the death penalty in absentia and stripped of their nationality, which was later reinstated,” according to the UN statement.

They were both were reportedly tortured and forced to sign confessions of their crimes it said.

“The two individuals should have never been convicted on the basis of what appears to be seriously flawed trials. Executions in these conditions would amount to arbitrary executions,” the UN experts said.

The third man executed on Saturday had been convicted of killing and dismembering an imam and subsequently sentenced to death in a unanimous decision by the court, according to Bahrain News Agency.