Appeal verdict date set in murder trial

Manama : Two Egyptian men, aged 36 and 37, convicted in a murder case will learn the fate of their appeals on October 29. The duo was earlier sentenced to life in prison by the High Criminal Court and the ruling was upheld by the High Appeals Court. However, the Cassation Court ordered for them to be re-tried before another High Appeals Court, which set the aforementioned date to announce its decision.  

Egyptian Taqi Ahmed Saleh, 26, died after being beaten up by the duo with a hockey stick and stabbed in the chest with a knife during a brawl on October 24, 2013. Mr Taqi’s wife took him to the nearby Bahrain Specialist Hospital, but doctors were unable to save him. The attack took place on one of the streets in Juffair as Mr Saleh allegedly owed one of the assailants his commission for renting out the apartment. And his wife earlier told the High Criminal Court that the defendants had sent several threat messages to her husband before carrying out the assault.

“They rang our apartment’s bell, and he went down. After a few minutes I went down to check on him and found that he was lying in a pool of his blood,” she told prosecutors. The duo was charged with premeditated murder for their direct link with the crime. A third suspect – a Bahraini policeman was also involved in the case. But his sentence was reduced from three to two years behind bars after he filed an appeal. He was accused of concealing crucial information from the authorities and not reporting the murder on time.

“The suspect called me at night and asked whether I knew about a brawl and stabbing incident on Juffair Street,” the officer said in his statement to prosecutors. “I said ‘no’ to him. I was drinking alcohol and was watching a football game. After a few minutes I fell asleep, forgetting to report the incident to higher officials. “He then called me the next day and told me that his victim had died. I asked him to send his children back to Egypt before surrendering before the police.”  

A fourth man was earlier detained on suspicion of supplying the men with weapons but was later released due to lack of proof. “I did not know the suspects’ intentions and they took the hockey stick from my car without my permission,” he had told prosecutors.