Bahrain Mirror: The First High Criminal Court in Manama adjourned on Tuesday (July 11, 2023) the mass trial of 65 people in the "Bloody Saturday" case to July 17, 2023, without the Ministry of Interior bringing any of the 65 defendants to the courtroom to attend the session. 

The director of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), Sayed Ahmed Al-Wadaei, confirmed via his twitter account that "this mass trial reflects the extent of the judiciary's corruption and failure to achieve a fair trial for the defendants, as it is impossible that all defendants attend the trial and be defended by lawyers."

The same court had postponed the mass trial of the 65 people twice, without any of them attending the sessions. It first postponed the trial to Monday, July 10, 2023 under the pretext of "bringing the defendants and authorizing the appointment of lawyers to 3 defendants", and postponed the trial in the second time to the following day under pretext of "brining the rest of defendants and appointing lawyers to 6."

The mass trial began on June 18, 2023 amid a government media blackout, while 62 out of the 65 people are serving sentences in Jaw Central Prison.

The case was activated more than two years after the incident known as the "Bloody Saturday Case" or "Bloody Saturday Attack" that took place on April 17, 2021, when detainees in buildings 12, 13 and 14 in Jaw Prison carried out a sit-in to protest the death of detainee Abass Malullah as a result of medical negligence.

The sit-in lasted 10 days, during which special forces and prison police used excessive force against the protesting detainees, which led to the injury of many of them and their loss of consciousness, after which the series of torture began in a horrific way that was the harshest in years. The detainees were subjected to enforced disappearance for 19 days.

The case received international follow-up, the British Parliament and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned Bahrain. Meanwhile, official institutions such as the Ombudsman, the National Institute for Human Rights and the Special Investigations Unit opened investigations into the incident. Al-Wadaei confirmed that "the result of investigation was clear that the institutions goal was to whitewash the crime and blame the detainees." 

The Special Investigations Unit has not yet disclosed the outcome of its investigation.

Arabic Version