7 January 2020 – Today, Father of the House Sir Peter Bottomley MP and Liberal Democrat Peer, Lord Scriven, wrote to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, urging him to “make immediate representations to the Bahraini government” on behalf of Bahraini death row inmates Mohammad Ramadhan and Hussein Moosa. Both men are due to receive the verdict from Bahrain’s High Criminal Court of Appeals tomorrow morning, after their initial death sentences were overturned when new evidence emerged that they had been tortured.
The Father of the House Sir Peter Bottomley and I wrote to @DominicRaab asking for his urgent intervention for the case of Mohammed Ramadhan and Hussein Moosa who are expecting a verdict tomorrow in #Bahrain.
Our taxpayer's money should not be used to condemn dissents to death pic.twitter.com/ELlAZfV3Pj
— Paul Scriven?️ (@Paulscriven) January 7, 2020
The letter challenged the efficacy of the UK government’s multi-million pound training programme to strengthen human rights and the rule of law in Bahrain, arguing that the increased use of the death penalty over the past three years “demonstrate the clear shortcomings of the programme.”
The letter further added that the verdict “will be an important test of the effectiveness of the UK-funded training” and that the “the UK must seriously consider the failings of their existing programme” if Mr Ramadhan and Mr Moosa are convicted again.
Mr Ramadhan and Mr Moosa had been due to receive the verdict on Christmas Day, raising concerns that Bahrain would sentence them to death again while Western audiences were distracted, as they have done in the past. While international pressure lead the hearing to be postponed once more, they are still facing a death sentence.
Both men have consistently maintained that the confessions used to sentence them to death in 2014 were extracted under torture. However, Bahrain’s judiciary has been forced to consider new evidence that Mr Ramadhan and Mr Moosa had been tortured, after Buzzfeed News found that a UK-trained oversight body had covered up allegations of torture, with complicity from the FCO. Since 2012, the UK has spent over £6.5 million supporting justice reform in Bahrain.
