A former security officer who returned to the Kingdom of Bahrain earlier this week, after spending several months in Australia was arrested Monday night over charges of extortion and misuse of authority, an official statement said Tuesday.
Former Security Intelligence Service Colonel Adel Flaifel was arrested a day after hundreds of people rallied outside the justice ministry demanding he stand trial for torturing former political prisoners and human rights violations.
He fled Bahrain early May, one day before he was due to appear before a special committee commissioned by the Royal Court to investigate claims by nine local businessmen whom he had forced to pay millions of dinars.
The statement, released by the National Security Agency, said he would face these charges before a military court.
"Flaifel has been arrested pending the verdict from the military court on the accusations leveled against him and which had triggered (the) investigation," it said, adding that "necessary measures" have also been taken to ensure that he will not flee the country again before the civil cases brought against him decided by the court, Gulf News reported Wednesday.
The statement, however, did not say if he was to be tried for the alleged human rights violations, but hinted that he may be pardoned under the new law, issued by a Royal decree in October, which granted amnesty to all alleged human rights crimes committed before the general amnesty, issued by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in February 2001.
The opposition groups, for their part, claim they will challenge the new law before the court. "This law provides a legal protection to Flaifel and others who committed crimes against our people," during the 1980s and the '90s, said Dr. Abdul Jalil Sangace, general secretary of the Islamic National Wefaq Society.
The group was insisting on prosecuting the former security official for "arresting thousands and torturing hundreds," he added, "some of them even died under his torture." (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
