Abdul Hadi al-Khawaja’, lawyer Mohammed al-Jeshi, “We fear that he might have passed away…”

Mon, 9 Apr 2012, 13:31 GMT+3 – Bahrain

The lawyer of jailed Bahraini activist Abdul Hadi al-Khawaja told the AFP news agency there were fears his client may have died, after authorities turned down repeated requests to contact him.

“Authorities have been refusing since yesterday [Sunday] all requests, made by myself and by his family, to visit or contact al-Khawaja,” Mohammed al-Jeshi, his lawyer, told AFP.

“We fear that he might have passed away as there is no excuse for them to prevent us from visiting or contacting him,” he said, adding that no information was available on Khawaja’s health.

Jeshi said the last time he contacted Khawaja was on Saturday, a day after he was moved from the interior ministry hospital into a military hospital in Manama. [AFP] …source