19 men on trial over sham murder - lawyer

Manama: Interior ministry officials quickly moved into damage control mode to settle simmering tensions over claims that a police officer, at the centre of a trial of 19 men, actually died five months before the ministry said he was murdered in a brutal arson attack.

Jasem Sarhan, the lawyer for the 19 defendants accused of hurling Molotov cocktails at a police patrol in Karzakan and killing Majid Asghar Ali in April this year, stunned the court and public when he produced an interior ministry document showing that the Pakistani-born policeman died in November last year.

The document, a letter from the interior ministry finance directorate to the head of courts at the justice ministry, dated May 25, 2008, says that enclosed is a BD1,060 (Dh10,326) cheque as a final settlement to the family of police officer Majid Asghar Ali who died on November 6, 2007.

"This is an official document from the interior ministry that indicates that the alleged murder victim had in fact died months before the riots took place," Sarhan told the court as he handed over the report.

"It proves that our clients are innocent of the murder charges set against them and we request the court to clear them of all charges and set them free."

Human error blamed

Al Wefaq, the largest bloc in the lower house, said that it had procured the document and did not wish to divulge it until the trial hearings. The society said that in light of the new evidence, the defendants should be released promptly.

However, the interior ministry then said that the controversy over the date was due to human error. "The date of the death mentioned in the letter was not true and was the result of a human error," Khalid Al Mannai, financial affairs director, said.

"The clerk who typed the letter relied on an older letter used previously for another Bahraini policeman, Abdullah Ali Mohsin, who died in November 2007.

"The employee made the changes regarding the name and the final settlement amount, but failed to change the date of death to make it consistent with that of Majid Asghar. We should not exaggerate the issue; it was merely a human error and it does not affect the case," he said.

The trial has been adjourned to November 10.