Al Wefaq commented on the court’s rulings noting, "The Special Investigation Unit refers to "secret sources" and detailed interrogation findings when the case being looked into is related to dissidents. At the same time, however, police personnel accused of killing protesters undergo farcical interrogations that lead to their acquittal," Alwefaq.net reported.
Al Wefaq also pointed out that the Special Investigation Unit does not consider physical evidence in cases of murder of protesters, although it says it films the security forces’ response to protests. But this was absent in the murder case of Salah Abbas, who was killed in cold blood during his participation in a protest in his home village Abu-Saiba.
Al Wefaq said it is surprising that the Special Investigation Unit was unable to identify the killer of Abbas among an estimated number of 50 known security personnel at the murder scene, while it is able to reach a suspect between thousands of protesters in other cases.
Al Wefaq stated that such sham interrogations in cases of murder of protesters are used to entrench the impunity policy the Bahraini regime tries to put in legal-frame.
Salah Abbas, 37, was killed by security forces during his participation in a protest on April 19th, 2012. He was brutally tortured after he was shot to the back and stomach with shotgun. "The acquittal of Salah’s murderer indicates that the regime is protecting killers of a certain faction in the society", Al Wefaq stated, "this illustrates the regime’s disvalue of the lives of Bahrainis".
The judiciary in Bahrain has been handing out lengthy and harsh sentences to protesters based on confessions obtained under torture. In the meanwhile, it has been acquitting and reducing sentences of security and military personnel. This pattern reflects the vivid injustice and entrenches the awful reputation of the partial and politically-motivated judiciary in Bahrain, Al Wefaq said.
