Bahrain hunger striker attends retrial in wheelchair

Jailed Bahraini activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, on hunger strike for more than three months, was brought to court in a wheelchair on Tuesday when the retrial resumed of 13 men imprisoned over protests that rocked the island last year, activists said. A military court convicted the men last year of using violence in protests led by majority Shi'ite Muslims in an effort to topple the Sunni monarchy. Bahrain's highest appeals court ordered a retrial last month for 21 protest leaders, ruling that they should be retried in a civilian court. Seven of them were convicted in absentia and are abroad or in hiding, and one, Horr al-Sumaikh, was released by the appeals court. The court did not order the release of the remaining 13 or cancel their convictions, despite calls by international rights groups for their unconditional release. Eight of them were serving life sentences. "He (Khawaja) showed up in court in a wheelchair today. He and the other men were expected to speak about torture so it (the session) may take time," Mohammed al-Maskati of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights told Reuters by phone from Manama. The trial began on May 8 but was adjourned because Khawaja and another defendant were too ill to attend. The 13 men on trial are believed to be among hundreds cited in a report prepared by an international rights investigation in November as having suffered torture in detention, often to extract confessions. Khadija Almousawi, Khawaja's wife, wrote on her Twitter account "Hadi has just entered the court room in a wheelchair ... I hear now my Hadi is talking about his torture and arrest and what he went through." Western governments and the United Nations secretary-general have called for a quick resolution of the case of Khawaja, who also holds Danish nationality. A separate court adjourned a hearing in the case of Khawaja's daughter, Zainab, arrested a month ago for trying to stage a protest in the capital Manama during the Formula One Grand Prix race in Bahrain. Sayed Yousif Almuhafda, a member of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), said Zainab's case was adjourned to May 27, after calling on witnesses to come forward to testify. Bahrain, led by the Sunni Al Khalifa family, has been in turmoil since mainly Shi'ite pro-democracy protests erupted last year. The protests were crushed in March 2011 with help from fellow Sunni-led Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia. Violence in Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet, has intensified in recent months, and protesters clash daily with riot police.