Around 1,500 Bahrainis staged a sit-in in front of the justice ministry on Sunday to protest the return of a former colonel they accuse of torture and human rights violations.
The sit-in was organized by four opposition groups, including the Islamic National Accord Association (INAA), the main Shiite political grouping.
The protestors held up banners calling for former security official Adel Jassem Flifel to be tried for "torture carried out when he served in the political police" of the interior ministry in the 1980s.
The sit-in was aimed, according to INAA number two Hassan Meshema, "at protesting the fleeing from Bahrain and the return to the country of Flifel, who should be arrested and tried for torture."
"The sit-in is also aimed at protesting a (royal) decree for a general amnesty that offers immunity to those who practiced torture, like Adel Flifel, " Meshma told AFP.
A Bahraini official, requesting anonymity, said Flifel, who fled abroad in early May, had returned voluntarily to the Bahraini Kingdom on Saturday. (Albawaba.com)
