Manama:  Abdul Rahman Al Nuaimi, one of Bahrain’s best-known political activists, was laid to rest after the Friday noon prayers amid impressive expressions of compassion and sympathy across the political and social spectrum.

At the Muharraq cemetery, relatives, friends, members of the National Democratic Action Society “Waad”, the party he helped establish in 2001 as an umbrella for pan-Arabists an liberals, and locals gathered to pay their last prayers and tributes to a man whose name was deeply associated with events that have unfolded in Bahrain in the last four decades.

Al Nuaimi, the man who spent 33 years in exile before returning home in 2001, passed away on Thursday morning more than four years after he lapsed into deep coma in Morocco.

Sympathies, prayers offered

In a condolence cable to the family, King Hamad Bin Eisa Al Khalifa offered his sympathies and prayers.

Born in in 1944 in Hidd, a small village on Muharraq Island, Bahrain’s historic hotbed of pan-Arabism, Al Nuaimi graduated from the American University in Beirut in 1966 with a degree in mechanical engineering.

He became politically active in 1961 when he joined the pan-Arab Movement that year before becoming member of the Popular Front. In 1974, he was the secretary general of the movement.

Exiled

Al Nuaimi was exiled from Bahrain in 1968, but returned home in 2001 when King Hamad launched a series of political reforms that allowed all exiles to return to Bahrain.

He worked on establishing a political society that would be an umbrella for liberals and nationalists in Bahrain and founded the National Democratic Action Society “Waad”. He was elected its secretary general in October 2001.

He ran for parliamentary elections in 2006, but narrowly lost in the second round.

Coma

Al Nuaimi, known as Abu Amal after his eldest daughter, lapsed into coma in April 2007 while he was in Morocco to attend a political conference.

He reportedly had an acute pancreatic failure that necessitated his admission to a local hospital where he was put on life support. He was moved to Saudi Arabia in April and to Bahrain in January 2008.

Throughout his life, he took part in several regional, Arab and international conferences and authored several books and articles on local and Arab issues.