On April 6, 2022, the Supreme Court of Saudi Arabia confirmed the death sentence for Bahraini citizens, Jaafar Sultan and Sadiq Thamer, allowing the Saudi authorities to kill these two young men at any time.
The two young men, Sadiq Thamer (7/11/1989) and Jaafar Sultan (10/2/1992), were arrested on May 8, 2015 while crossing the King Fahd Causeway linking Bahrain with Saudi Arabia, without an arrest warrant, and they were transferred to the General Investigation Prison in Dammam.
After the Supreme Court's approval of the ruling, Thamer and Sultan have exhausted all legal frameworks, and all that remains is to implement the ruling. The follow-up of the European-Saudi Organization for Human Rights confirmed that the judgment was issued after a trial that lacked the minimum conditions of justice and in light of multiple violations since the moment of arrest, and this was confirmed by the letter of the United Nations special rapporteurs to the Saudi government on January 22, 2022, which called for an immediate halt to the execution of death sentences against Both Jaafar Sultan and Sadeq Thamer, considering that the data on the case make their executions arbitrary.
According to the information, the two young men were subjected to torture and ill-treatment. Sadiq Thamer has been subjected to enforced disappearance from the moment of his arrest for several months, as the family knew of his arrest only through the local Saudi media, and did not receive any information about him except during a call to him in August 2015, nearly three months after his arrest.
During the period of the enforced disappearance, Thamer was in solitary confinement where he remained for a hundred days, during which he was severely tortured, and forced to sign confessions.
A lawyer was not appointed for the two young men until after the trial sessions began, and the lawyer did not have access to all documents and information.
In the trial that was held in the Specialized Criminal Court, the Public Prosecution Office - which directly belongs to the King as stipulated in its statute, charged them, including: participating in the Bahrain demonstrations, covering up wanted persons in Bahrain, misleading the investigation authorities in Saudi Arabia, participating in the formation of a terrorist cell in Bahrain, receiving military and security training, and smuggling explosive materials to Saudi Arabia. Although the defense team of the defendants asked the plaintiff to show evidence that the two young men were involved in these charges, the Saudi government refused to provide any evidence. In November 2021, a disciplinary death sentence was issued against them, and in January 2022 the Court of Appeal approved the ruling and transferred it to the Supreme Court, which in turn ratified the ruling on April 6, 2022.
This was preceded by a ruling by the Fourth Bahraini Criminal Court on May 31, 2016 against Sadiq and Jaafar in life imprisonment in Bahrain and paying a fine of 200,000 Bahraini dinars, in addition to withdrawing their citizenship, after convicting them of the following charges: Joining a terrorist group for the purpose of calling for disruption The provisions of the constitution and laws and the prevention of state institutions and public authorities from carrying out their activities and harming their national unity. Terrorism was one of the means used to achieve these purposes, joining this group and receiving funds necessary to spend on their activities, receiving explosives and manufacturing them for use in terrorist activities, with the aim of spreading chaos and provoking Sedition and weakening the foundations of the state and toppling it. The charges that these two young men faced in Bahrain largely coincide with the charges they faced in Saudi Arabia, which shows the bloodyness of the Saudi judiciary and its resort to death sentences in violation of international agreements, as the charges that these two young men were accused of are not among the most serious that warrant the death penalty.
ESOHR confirms that the verdict against the two Bahraini youths, Jaafar Sultan and Sadeq Thamer, is arbitrary, and that it was issued after an unfair trial that violated international and local laws, during which the detainees were subjected to enforced disappearance, torture and the extraction of confessions, as well as deprived of their right to adequately defend themselves.
The organization considers that the Saudi government's continued issuance of punitive killing sentences, which are based on an appreciative opinion of the judge in the punishment without a forensic and legal text, an affirmation of the level of ferocity and brutality of the political decision-maker King Salman and his son - who are completely in control of the judicial system - and their bias towards murder. Even in cases that do not include murder charges, this is added to the lack of confidence in the fairness of trials and the lack of accountability frameworks.
ESOHR considers that any ruling of Ta’ziri sentence currently, including the sentences against the two young men, Sultan and Thamer, which may be implemented at any moment, is a blow to the official allegations - issued by Prince Muhammad bin Salman in his interview with The Atlantic on March 3, 2022. - Regarding punishment. Bin Salman had claimed that work was underway to get rid of all death sentences, except for one category stipulated by Sharia, in reference to those accused of murder, which confirms that his statements cannot be taken seriously.