By Paul Nicholson
October 30 – AFC president and FIFA presidential candidate Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa has issued a stinging rebuke of the reports that he led a task force that identified and prosecuted footballers active in Bahrain’s democracy protests in 2011.
US-based Bahraini human rights groups have been pressuring the FIFA candidate on the issue citing a Bahrani news agency report that Salman was appointed to head a fact-finding committee that led to the arrest and subsequent interrogation and torture of players who had protested against the country’s regime.
However, Salman, issuing a statement for the first time on the allegations, says that no committee was ever formed and certainly never met.
The statement read: “Recent allegations are entirely false and categorically denied by Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa. While it was proposed that Sheikh Salman lead a fact-finding committee in relation to the events of 2011, that committee was never formally established and never conducted any business whatsoever.
“For the record, and in light of the recycling of historic allegations in the media, Sheikh Salman had absolutely no involvement in the identification, investigation, prosecution or mistreatment of any individuals as has been alleged.”
It is understood that while a leading member of Bahrain’s royal family had said that the committee would be formed, and that Salman would be appointed at its head, in fact the local justice authorities carried out the investigations and Salman was never involved in this action.
Salman says that the reports that have circulated the world are using as evidence one news agency report of a proposal that ultimately never happened.
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