Report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry

Chapter V — Events at Salmaniya Medical Complex
d. Unauthorised marches and gatherings by medical personnel;
e. Discrimination based on ethnicity or sect;
f. Illegal acquisition and use of medicine and medical facilities;
g. Unlawful detention of patients; and
h. Possession of firearms and weapons.
698. The GoB’s account of events is based on the accounts of the MoI
investigators who conducted the interrogations of the doctors. Witness No. 1
in Case No. 191 of 2011 gave a comprehensive summary of the GoB’s version
of events:
The witness states that there is information he has received from
his secret sources that shows the complicity of a large group of
employees from SMC, and others in the medical field, headed by
[one of the accused doctors]. [This accused doctor] was in charge
of forming this group in solidarity with the illegitimate demands
of the saboteurs, who call for the fall of the regime, with the aim
of spreading chaos and fear in Bahrain. The aim was to support
them materially and morally by placing all the hospital’s
capabilities at their disposal and making it the main centre for
conducting their illegal works. There is an organisational
relationship between them (the medical group) and those who
attended the GCC Roundabout. They imposed their total control
on the sections of the hospital, and threatened doctors and other
officials who objected to their methods. They set up tents for
protesters in the parking lot of the hospital. They also set up a
medical tent at the roundabout and supervised it and provided it
with medicine from the hospital and other medical facilities. This
included beds, stretchers and blood bags for protesters to use to
stain their clothes to provide a false picture to the local and
international media that they were injured during standoffs with
security personnel.
They also went out in several unlicensed demonstrations in
solidarity with the other protesters calling for the fall of the
regime. They also organised numerous sit-ins at the hospital and
used ambulance cars to carry protesters and their weapons, as well
as hostages from Asian backgrounds to and from the hospital after
abducting them and holding them in custody and assaulting them
and transporting some of them as detainees to the GCC
Roundabout. They directed ambulance cars in a haphazard
manner throughout the Kingdom with the purpose of spreading
terror among citizens and exciting the general public. This was
intended to convey an untrue picture about injuries to protesters in
order to pressure the Kingdom to hasten the achievement of their
illegitimate aims and goals. They also seized knives and firearms
with the intention of resisting security personnel if the latter tried
to enter Salmaniya Hospital. They used a large group of
177