Serbia decided to deport Bahraini Ahmed Jaafar Muhammad Ali to his country, after an Interpol red notice was issued against him, ignoring the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights not to extradite him.
In a report published by the British Middle East Eye website, writer Alex MacDonald says that Ahmed Jaafar Muhammad Ali was extradited on Monday, after Serbian officials responded to a request submitted by Bahrain to Interpol.
Ali, who was previously sentenced to life imprisonment twice in Bahrain, had applied for asylum in Serbia in November 2021, stressing that he was at risk of torture and death in his home country.
The European Court of Human Rights has issued a ruling that Ali will not be extradited to Bahrain until February 25, 2022, pending obtaining more information about his case, in particular “the risks of torture or ill-treatment that the applicant may face if extradited to Bahrain,” And looking into the mechanisms by which he can “reconsider the sentence issued against him to life imprisonment in Bahrain.”
Despite the decision of the European Court of Human Rights, Ali was deported to Bahrain on Monday morning, and a flight tracking service shows that the Royal Jet Serbia plane he was on departed at 5:10 CET.
The director of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, Syed Ahmed Al-Wadaei, sees the extradition of Ali as a “scandal”, adding in a statement to Middle East Eye that “Serbia blatantly ignored its obligations under international law and its decision to destroy the life of the Bahraini dissident is resentful.”
Al-Wadaei stressed that Serbia’s disregard for the European Court of Human Rights’ decision indicates that it “prioritizes strengthening its commercial relations with the Bahraini regime.”
Bahrain-Serbian Relations
The writer explains that Bahrain and Serbia have strengthened diplomatic and trade relations between them over the past year.
In March 2021, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic visited Bahrain to strengthen economic relations, and discussed organizing regular flights between the two capitals.
Last week, the head of the National Institution for Human Rights in Bahrain, Ali Ahmed Al-Derazi, held a virtual meeting with the Serbian Prosecutor General Zoran Pasalić, to discuss “issues of common interest and ways to enhance cooperation in the field of human rights between Serbian and Bahraini institutions,” according to the official media in Bahrain. .
Middle East Eye has contacted the Serbian government for comment, but has not received a response.
For his part, Al-Wadaei indicated that the deportation process sets a precedent for a Bahraini citizen, shortly after the appointment of the Emirati Ahmed Nasser Al Raisi as Interpol president, which raised the fears of many human rights activists.
It is noteworthy that Al-Raisi, the Inspector General of the Ministry of Interior in the United Arab Emirates, is accused of involvement in many violations, including crimes of torture, sexual assault, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance, according to the author.
In this regard, Al-Wadaei says, “The abuse of Interpol’s powers is what we feared after the election of Al-Raisi at the head of the agency, which is the beginning of a darker era supervised by the authoritarian police forces.”