Council of Europe tells Serbia to implement judgement on Bahraini political prisoner

Council of Europe tells Serbia to implement judgement on Bahraini political prisoner Submitted by Oscar Rickett on Tue, 09/29/2026 - 07:00 Ahmed Jaafar Mohamed Ali was extradited from Serbia and has been in Bahrain's Jau Prison since 2022 Ahmed Jaafar Mohamed Ali has been held in Jau Prison since he was deported from Serbia in January 2022 (ADHRB) Off The Council of Europe has called on Serbia to implement a European Court of Human Rights judgement, which held that the Balkan country had violated the European Convention on Human Rights when it extradited a Bahraini activist seeking asylum.

Ahmed Jaafar Mohamed Ali travelled to Serbia to seek asylum in November 2021 but was arrested by authorities there based on an Interpol red notice, which Ali’s lawyers say was unlawfully issued.

The European Court of Human Rights issued an interim measure in January 2022 calling on Serbian authorities to refrain from extraditing Ali pending more information and particularly given the risk of torture or ill-treatment if he was returned.

Three days later, campaigners say a private plane, chartered by United Arab Emirates -based Royal Jet Airlines, took Ali to Bahrain.

Ever since then the activist, who fled Bahrain in 2011 and then lived in Iran before travelling to Serbia, has been held in Bahrain’s Jau Prison on two life sentences.

Inside the prison, Ali says he has been beaten, denied medical treatment, had his faith insulted and held in solitary confinement.

According to a recent call with fellow activists, a transcript of which was seen by Middle East Eye, Ali is currently being held in the prison’s Building Two, which houses violent offenders and those on serious drug charges.

Inside the building, the activist says these prisoners - acting on instruction from prison guards - beat and abuse him, creating a climate of fear that never lifts.

European ruling on Serbia In March 2025, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Serbia had violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) by extraditing Ali in defiance of an interim court block.

Article 3 of the convention safeguards against torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The Serbian courts violated this when they failed to examine Ali’s complaint that he would face ill-treatment if sent back to Bahrain.

He is stuck in a severely overcrowded cell, has repeatedly had to resort to hunger strikes just to secure basic rights, and has been in and out of solitary confinement - Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, Bird The ECHR ordered Serbia to pay 9,800 euros ($11,100), plus any tax chargeable and interest in the event of a default in payment.

The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers says that, since the judgement, Serbia has placed a sum of money for Ali in a deposit account in a domestic court.

However, the committee acknowledged his lawyers’ argument that there are “difficulties in complying with the conditions for the release of the funds given the exceptional nature of [Ali’s] situation” in Jau Prison.

The Council of Europe has said that Serbia should “co-operate with [Ali’s] representatives and the Secretariat to find solutions to enable the release of funds to take place without delay”.

Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (Bird), told MEE that he had also been held in Building Two at Jau Prison, and that talking to Ali recently had brought back, in vivid detail, the suffering he had experienced there.

“It was very hard to hear Ahmed describing to me the degrading conditions he is living in at Jau Prison.

He is stuck in a severely overcrowded cell, has repeatedly had to resort to hunger strikes just to secure basic rights, and has been in and out of solitary confinement,” Alwadaei said.

“This decision is an important reminder that Serbia cannot simply take Bahrain’s assurances at face value.

It must face the reality of what happened after Ahmed’s unlawful extradition and do everything it can to protect him.

” Political prisoners in Bahrain Last year, Amnesty said that an estimated 322 political prisoners remained arbitrarily detained in Bahrain.

Bahrain Grand Prix: Twenty years of dissent and sportswashing Read More » In the wake of the Arab Spring uprising of 2011, thousands of Bahrainis – mostly from the Sunni-ruled kingdom’s majority Shia population – were arrested and thrown in prison.

In 2024, Bahrain granted 1,500 prisoners royal pardons, and other similar moves have followed, but, according to Amnesty, the government continues to “suppress the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, including through arbitrary detention and prosecutions”.

The US - Israeli war on Iran has also resulted in a new crackdown from Bahraini authorities, including stripping citizenship from those expressing anything deemed to be supportive of Iran, which has struck targets inside Bahrain.

In his recent call from Jau Prison, Ali described being kept in an overcrowded cell in which half the inmates had to sleep on the floor and in which a lack of ventilation resulted in “suffocating” conditions.

In July, he says he was badly beaten, and he remains “under threat at any moment” from the same “gang”.

The toilet and washing facilities are unsanitary, he said, with prisoners relying on a hose to wash themselves and overflowing drains.

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