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Moroccan Prisoner Dies in Jaw Prison, His Mother Says He was Torture for Whole Night by Prison Officials

2019-02-22 - 10:58 p

Bahrain Mirror: The Moroccan Center for Human Rights announced the death of a Moroccan prisoner in the Jaw Central Prison in Bahrain in mysterious circumstances after being mistreated.

His mother said in a video interview that her son was "tortured for a whole night by prison officials".

Meanwhile the Moroccan Embassy in Bahrain said the prisoner died after a sudden brain hemorrhage, without referring to the reasons.

In its statement, the Moroccan Centre for Human Rights expressed its condemnation at the death of a Moroccan citizen in Bahrain's jails, saying, "Once again, the soul of a Moroccan citizen is being taken in Bahrain's jails, under circumstances that are said to be vague and totally not innocent."

"It is about the Moroccan citizen Najib Mahfouz Ibn Al Sharqi, in his 30s, who moved from Tangier to Bahrain, with a university degree from the Institute of Tourism and Hospitality, as part of a work contract at a hotel in the Kingdom of Bahrain," the center said in a statement.

The center added "he was accused along with his two friends, one from Egypt and the other from South Africa, of raping four Filipino females, in a scene which, through documents and testimonies, appears to be only a failed blackmail. However, the Bahraini judiciary issued a 15-year jail prison term against the three suspects on June 2, 2014. The suspects were imprisoned, however, the Moroccan citizen was subjected to various harassment, which made him vulnerable to beatings and repeated assaults by prison officials, although he was trying to avoid them, as well as the good behavior testimony from the prison staff. He has always pleaded not guilty, and the Bahraini judiciary wasn't fair and convicted him, without any evidence."

The center noted that "despite the repeated writings of the mother of the deceased citizen, to the Bahraini embassy in Rabat and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Morocco, and to the Moroccan ambassador in the Kingdom of Bahrain, as well as the Moroccan foreign concerned in addressing the grievances of citizens, nothing happened, except a decent reply from the embassy of Morocco in Bahrain in 2015, through which it tells the mother of the deceased that it sent an embassy employee to prison to visit the oppressed Moroccan prisoner."

"In recent months, the harassment and assault of the deceased Moroccan citizen intensified, and after it reached the grievance of Naguib's mother, a delegation of the Moroccan Centre for Human Rights visited the Embassy of the Kingdom of Bahrain in Rabat, to request a meeting with the Ambassador of Bahrain to discuss the issue of the citizen who is detained in Bahrain prisons. The meeting wasn't held, , and the embassy was subsequently correspondent via the official email of the embassy, as directed by an official at the office, to help seek pardon for the Moroccan citizen detained in Bahrain, or to spend the remainder of the sentence here in Morocco, but the center did not receive any reply. The mother also did not receive any response, either from the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Embassy of Morocco in Bahrain," the center added.

The center noted that "on Wednesday, February 20, 2019, the mother of the Moroccan received a telephone call informing her of the death of her son. She suffered an intolerable trauma, especially since she has suffered for a long time to seek a solution to the arrest of her son and his harsh sentence. The deceased told his mother that he is being assaulted is that he is being assaulted, without being fairly treated the prison administration. He launched hunger strike several times in order that he gets fairly treated, but they were of no use."

The Moroccan Center for Human Rights blamed prison administration for the death of Moroccan. It also said that the Bahraini judiciary is responsible for the absence of fair trial rules, during the trial of the deceased Najib Mahfouz, as well as the Moroccan Embassy in Bahrain, which did not do anything to save the Moroccan citizen from the danger of death n Bahrain's prisons. "

The center denounced the "policy of systematic negligence and indifference adopted by the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its various internal and external interests, towards the case of Nagib Mahfouz, and not taking into consideration his mother's repeated appeals to intervene in order to save her son from injustice he suffered in Bahrain."

It called on the Moroccan Government "to take the necessary measures and procedures to bring the body of the deceased to Morocco, and transfer it to forensic medicine in order to conduct a thorough and independent medical autopsy to determine the causes of death and arrange what should be done in the light of the results of the medical autopsy."

Arabic Version