A Bahraini activist’s deportation from Serbia raises questions about the role of Interpol

Labour rights activist Ahmed Jaffar Mohammed Ali found a measure of sanctuary after falling foul of the Bahraini regime and allegedly being subject to torture, abuse and years of legal entanglements. Unluckily for him, he found it in Serbia, a Balkan nation increasingly cosy with the very same monarchical dictatorship he had escaped.

In the early morning on 24 January, he was deported back to Bahrain, nine years after he fled the country. The extradition took place with the apparent collusion of Interpol, the international law enforcement body, and despite a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling ordering him to stay put, pending further hearings.

This is a case that should worry everyone. It touches upon the growing chumminess between authoritarian governments across the world, and raises disturbing questions about the role of Interpol.

Bahrain’s interior ministry has confirmed the extradition of Ali. It described him as a “security fugitive” who was arrested and extradited “after coordination and communication with a friendly country”.

Ali was wanted on serious murder and terrorism charges. But close examination of his case shows numerous disturbing irregularities from start to finish. Ali had long been in the sights of the Bahraini authorities. He was jailed and allegedly tortured following 2007 anti-government protests, and released in 2009 under a royal pardon. But he ran afoul of the regime again when he took part in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising against the Bahraini monarchy.

He fled Bahrain in 2013, and found his way to Europe, but his ordeal was far from over. Bahraini authorities tried him in absentia, sentenced him to life imprisonment and stripped him of his citizenship. According to a statement by Bahrain’s interior ministry, Ali was convicted in absentia and sentenced to serve three life sentences for “terrorism-related offences between 2012 and 2015, including murder, and manufacturing and possessing explosives”.

The most serious charge was his alleged role in a 2014 bombing which killed two Bahraini police officers and another from the United Arab Emirates. But the bombing took place while Ali was already abroad, and the trial has been derided by international experts as a sham in which three Bahrainis were executed in 2017.

As it backslides on press freedoms and civil liberties at home, Serbia has increased its cooperation with autocracies abroad, including Bahrain and the UAE. Photos posted on Instagram show Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic, among eastern Europe’s surging right-wing populists, cuddling a dog and greeting children alongside a leading member of the Bahraini royal family during a visit to the island nation in March last year. There, the two countries signed a deal to establish embassies in each others’ capitals.

“This is the beginning of a great friendship,” Vucic was quoted as saying. Vucic has also been getting cosy with the UAE’s leadership, and one analyst called the oil-rich absolute monarchy Serbia’s “best friend” in the Arab world.

On 17 January, just a week before Ali was deported, Bahrain and Serbia held a high-level meeting on the topic of “human rights”. Serbian authorities then arrested and jailed the 49-year-old on a 2015 Bahraini Red Notice received by Interpol.

Interpol argues that it is a neutral organisation that only does what member states ask it to. But Interpol has long been criticised for allowing authoritarian rulers to abuse the Red Notice system to target dissidents abroad. It has recently come under fire for electing a leading UAE security official to its presidency in November, despite allegations of torture and grave concerns voiced by leading human rights advocacy groups. His election came following a years-long campaign of “donations” by the UAE for various Interpol projects.

While in detention, Ali described himself in letters to the Serbian courts as an activist with a focus on workers’ rights. He said he was among those targeted following the February 2011 uprising against the Bahraini dynasty. He said he had come to Serbia in search of asylum. He later alleged that he was not allowed to get in touch with his wife and children, and that even his lawyer was no longer able to see him while he was held in Serbia.

On 21 January, responding to an appeal by Ali’s lawyer, the ECHR ruled that he should not be extradited until 25 February at the earliest, listing nearly half a dozen unanswered questions about his case. “Have the Serbian courts taken into consideration the possible risks of torture?” the ruling said. “Has the applicant been allowed to access the asylum procedure in Serbia?”

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When he was finally shipped off to Bahrain, it wasn’t aboard a commercial jet but a private charter operated by Royal Jet, a United Arab Emirates firm whose chairman is a member of the royal family.

The ECHR is demanding answers from the Serbian government about the deportation. In a response last week, Serbia’s envoy to the court claimed the ECHR’s ruling came too late to halt the deportation, a contention mocked by the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights. “ECHR’s measures require immediate action precisely to prevent the occurrence of irreparable harm, in this case the extradition of [Ali] to the state where he is at risk of torture and inhumane or degrading treatment,” the advocacy group said in a statement.

According to Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, director of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, Ali is being held in the Dry Dock Detention Centre near Manama, and has not been allowed any visits from family or lawyers, though he was permitted to call his family,

Human Rights Watch has called the case “terrifying and inexcusable”. Though sentenced to three life terms, Ali has yet to have a chance to defend himself in court, and there is no guarantee he will ever have such an opportunity. “Interpol and Serbian authorities have put a man who fled torture and life in a Bahraini prison and sought refuge in Europe at grave risk,” Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said.

The apparent backroom collaboration between tyrants and would-be autocrats in Manama and Belgrade hints at the emergence of a global axis of authoritarians. The role of Interpol, under the presidency of former UAE interior ministry enforcer Maj Gen Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi, in Ali’s arrest and deportation suggests deep flaws within the organisation.

Interpol was created as a tool to protect people around the world from international terrorists and criminals. The worry is that it is being used as a tool to protect governments from political opponents.