COURT RULES CHARGES AGAINST SUNNI EXTREMIST CELL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MANAMA 001156 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/27/2016 TAGS: PTER PREL PGOV ASEC BA BILAT CTR POL SUBJECT: COURT RULES CHARGES AGAINST SUNNI EXTREMIST CELL UNCONSTITUTIONAL REF: A. CAIRO 3901 ¶B. MANAMA 0766 Classified by Ambassador William T. Monroe for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) Bahrain's constitutional court issued a decision June 26 that the conspiracy charges filed against four Sunni extremists are unconstitutional, citing a conflict between Article 157 of the penal code and Article 20 of the constitution. The constitution requires that only "acts" be punished while the penal code says participating in an agreement with the intent to commit a felony constitutes criminal activity. High profile attorneys Farid Ghazi and Abdullah Hashem publicly expressed their satisfaction with the ruling, saying it demonstrated the judicial sector's independence. Salafi MP Mohammed Khalid said the accused had no connection to Al Qaida or other terrorist groups. Meanwhile, a draft CT law continues to bounce between the full Council of Representatives (COR) and the COR committee with responsibility for it. The court ruling and lack of movement on the CT law demonstrate that the Bahraini government faces serious limitations in using the legal system to clamp down on suspected terrorists. The Ambassador will urge senior Bahraini policymakers to develop policy responses to deal with extremists. End Summary. -------------- Conspiracy Charges Unconstitutional -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Bahrain's constitutional court June 26 ruled that the charges against four Bahrainis accused of planning to carry out terrorist attacks were unconstitutional. The ruling effectively ends the prosecution of members of a Sunni extremist cell originally arrested in June 2004 on charges of plotting bomb attacks on government, economic, and tourist establishments. Four cell members - Mohieddin Khan, Yaser Kamal, Bassam Ali, and Bassam Bokhowa - continued to face charges, while two others arrested at the same time, Omar Kamal and Mohammed Saleh, had charges against them dropped in late 2004. Procedurally, the case against the four now moves back to the criminal court, which should dismiss the case based upon the constitutional court decision. No date has yet been set for the criminal court hearing. ¶3. (SBU) The court ruled in favor of the arguments of the lawyers for the accused, who said that Article 157 of the penal code of 1976, under which the suspects were charged, conflicts with Article 20 of the constitution of 2002. The operative passage of Article 157 reads, "A prison sentence shall be the penalty for any person who participates in an agreement with the intent of committing any of the felonies provided for in Articles 147 to 155..." Article 20 of the constitution says, "There shall be no crime and no punishment except under a law, and punishment only for acts committed subsequent to the effective date for the law providing for the same." The court concurred with the argument that "agreement with the intent of committing" a felony conflicts with the constitutional requirement that "acts" be committed. -------------- Attorneys Express Satisfaction with Outcome -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Attorneys for the accused publicly greeted the decision with satisfaction. Farid Ghazi, MP and lawyer for one of the cell members, told the press that the verdict "reinforces my trust in the court and shows that judges are free to make decisions without any interference." Attorney and politician Abdullah Hashem said publicly that he had been certain the court would deliver this verdict. He commented that there are two aspects of any crime - the material and the abstract. In this case, he claimed, there was no material aspect, and an intention to commit an act is not a crime. Salafi MP Mohammed Khalid, an outspoken supporter the accused, told reporters that by taking the decision, the courts proved that they are not under any influence. He stated that the accused had no connection to Al Qaida or other terrorist groups and never intended to harm public property. One of the accused, Mohieddin Khan, told the press that the ruling "proves the Bahraini judiciary is impartial and does not succumb to external pressures." ¶5. (C) In a conversation with Poloff prior to the ruling, Attorney Rabab Al Arrayedh said that she had initiated the MANAMA 00001156 002 OF 002 constitutional court challenge on behalf of her client Bokhowa. Ghazi, who represents Khan, and Hashem, who represents Kamal and Ali, took the opportunity to file appeals similar to Al Arrayedh's on behalf of their clients. She said that she incorporated into her strategy a legal precedent from a 2002 Egyptian constitutional court ruling that struck down a conspiracy law similar to Article 157. -------------- CT Law Bouncing Around Parliament -------------- ¶6. (C) Meanwhile, the elected lower house Council of Representatives continues to struggle with a draft counter-terrorism law. The government originally passed the law to the COR in late 2004, but the COR returned it to the government, complaining that it employed an overly broad definition of terrorism and applied penalties that were too harsh. The law bounced between the government and COR several times until the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and National Security Committee agreed to review it. Committee chair Ahmad Behzad told the Ambassador in April that he was confident the bill would pass, although he noted that the committee had changed the name to "Protection of Society Security Law" to focus public attention on protecting the people rather than on fighting terrorism (Ref B). ¶7. (C) Since the time of the Ambassador's meeting, the bill moved to the full COR but without Article 18, which deals with conspiracy. The COR decided to return it to the committee. The bill moved to the COR a second time, and MPs again returned it to committee, where it now sits. Shia MP Mohammed Al Shaikh June 26 told Poloff that "no one" in the COR supports the bill. Sunnis MPs believe it was drafted to target Sunni Islamists, and Shias oppose it because it is reminiscent of the old State Security Law of the 1970s-1990s, under which security organs committed human rights violations, mainly against Shia Bahrainis. The bill may be passed as a result of pressure from the government, but at this time it is unclear if it would include an article criminalizing conspiracy. Even if it did, that provision could be found to be unconstitutional, given the June 26 court decision. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶8. (C) The constitutional court ruling and uncertain status of the draft CT law in parliament demonstrate that the GOB faces serious limitations currently in its ability to use the legal system to clamp down on suspected terrorists. Given the Bahraini judicial sector's reliance upon Egyptian laws and legal experts, news that that the Egyptian government is looking at the PATRIOT Act as a possible model for a CT law and has at least two separate committees developing a bill for parliament (Ref A) could have a beneficial impact in Bahrain in the longer term. In the meantime, we -- in coordination with NAVCENT -- will continue to press senior Bahraini interlocutors on the need to develop policy prescriptions for dealing with the extremists that both they and we know are present in the country. ********************************************* ******** Visit Embassy Manama's Classified Website: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/manama/ ********************************************* ******** MONROE