Thursday, May 17, 2012

Autopsy finds torture behind Bahrain drowning


Report exclusively obtained by Al Jazeera says 23-year-old had been electrically tortured before drowning in January.

By Matthew Cassel
Al-Jazeera

".....However, Al Jazeera has exclusively obtained a report from a second autopsy performed by an independent forensic pathologist that concludes Mowali was electrically tortured and unconscious when he drowned.

If true, Mowali's death would be the first of a person in police custody since the government promised reforms, following the release of a report by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), which looked at the early months of unrest surrounding last year’s pro-democracy uprising.

The government-sponsored commission found that Bahrain's Interior Ministry and national security agency employed "a systematic practice of physical and psychological mistreatment, which in many cases amounted to torture" during the early months of the crackdown in 2011.

BICI also reported five deaths as a result of police torture. Mowali’s death could be the sixth - and an indication that the mistreatment of prisoners in Bahrain has not stopped, despite the government's promises....."

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