THE government was accused of betraying its principles yesterday after it failed to take action over death sentences which Bahrain is expected to impose against two democracy campaigners on Monday. 

During an urgent question from Tory MP Sir Peter Bottomley, MPs from both sides of the Commons chamber urged the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to intervene over the coming days.

Mr Bottomley asked Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab — who was not present — to make a statement on whether he will publicly raise the cases of the two prisoners with the government of Bahrain. 

Campaigners Mohammed Ramadhan and Husain Moosa’s final appeal against murder convictions is scheduled to take place on Monday at Bahrain’s Court of Cassation.

Their death sentences, for a 2011 bombing in which a police officer was killed, are likely to be upheld, according to the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (Bird).

The original death sentences in 2014 were overturned in 2018 after they said they were tortured and forced to sign false confessions.

But Bahrain’s high court reimposed the death sentences in January, asserting that the country’s British-trained Special Investigations Unit had established that the confessions were not obtained through torture. 

Since 2012 the British government has provided more than £5 million of technical assistance, yet the number of executions and human rights abuses has increased. 

Liverpool Riverside Labour MP Kim Johnson urged the government to make “effective representations” in the cases of the two men before the court’s final decision.

Middle East and North Africa minister James Cleverly insisted that the government would only “loudly remind” the Gulf nation of Britain’s opposition to the death penalty after the decision was made.

Labour MP Andrew Gwynne asked him whether the British ambassador to Bahrain would attend the trials as an international observer.

Mr Cleverly said: “If the Court of Cassation hands down a death sentence again we will not stop at that point but will continue to dissuade the Bahrainis from utilising the death penalty.”

It comes after peers in the House of Lords called on Wednesday for the government to act.

Bird director of advocacy Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei welcomed the intervention, adding: “At this point Bahrain should have learned that upholding the death sentences against these torture survivors will not pass without consequence.

“These men have suffered enough injustice at the hands of Bahrain’s corrupt judiciary.”