On January 11, 2022, the Court of Appeal in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia upheld the Tazir death sentence for the two Bahraini citizens, Jaafar Sultan and Sadiq Thamer.
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 court of appeal approved the ruling, they still have until the last stage, which is the Supreme Court, for the king's signature and execution. European Saudi Organization for Human Rights monitoring confirmed that the verdict was issued after a trial that lacked the minimum conditions of justice and in light of multiple violations since the moment of arrest.
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.
Before the Specialized Criminal Court, several charges were brought against them, including: participating in the formation of a terrorist cell in Bahrain, receiving military and security training, smuggling explosive materials to Saudi Arabia, participating in the Bahrain demonstrations, covering up wanted persons in Bahrain, and misleading the investigation authorities in Saudi Arabia. In November 2021 the disciplinary death sentence was issued, and in January 2022 the Court of Appeal confirmed the ruling and transferred it to the Supreme Court.
ESOHR affirms that the verdict against the two Bahraini youths, Jaafar Sultan and Sadeq Thamer, is arbitrary, because 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 death sentences, which are based on the judge's discretionary opinion on the punishment without a legal text, is an insistence on the bloody approach that the government has followed in the execution file for years.
The European Saudi Organization considers that any Tazir death sentence currently is a blow to all official promises regarding punishment, especially in cases where detainees do not face charges that are considered one of the most serious and which international law limits to premeditated murder.