{"id":30996,"date":"2019-01-29T03:23:33","date_gmt":"2019-01-29T03:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=30996"},"modified":"2019-01-29T03:23:33","modified_gmt":"2019-01-29T03:23:33","slug":"bahrain-insists-on-footballers-extradition-from-thailand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=30996","title":{"rendered":"Bahrain insists on footballer&#8217;s extradition from Thailand"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\" data-io-article-url=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/1443426\/middle-east\" readability=\"71\">\n<p>\nDUBAI: Bahrain insisted Monday on the extradition from Thailand of a footballer convicted for a terrorism offense.<\/p>\n<p>\nHakeem Al-Araibi was jailed in absentia in 2014 for 10 years on charges related to an\u00a0attack on a police station in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe 25-year-old, who played for Bahrain&#8217;s national youth team, fled his homeland while on bail and was granted asylum in Australia where he plays semi-professionally in Melbourne.<\/p>\n<p>\nHe was detained on an Interpol notice in November as he entered Thailand for a vacation.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cAl-Araibi was arrested in Thailand and proceedings to extradite him to Bahrain are in process so that he can serve his sentence,\u201d a Bahraini government statement said.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cHe had all the rights and opportunities to defend himself in the criminal case, in which some of the suspects with him were acquitted by the court,\u201d Bahrain\u2019s interior minister Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al-Khalifa said in the government statement.<\/p>\n<p>\nHe added that Al-Araibi may appeal the verdict if he is returned to Bahrain.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe minister said Al-Araibi, who was allowed to travel with the national soccer team while on bail, had fled to Iran from Qatar &#8220;never to return.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nSheikh Rashid criticized what he described as \u201cexternal interference\u201d in Manama&#8217;s internal affairs.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cThose who speak now of Al-Araibi having been mistreated and those who question the integrity of Bahrain\u2019s courts ignore the fact that Al-Araibi was released on bail of 100 dinars by the courts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe footballer denies the charges against him and the Australian government have called for his release.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DUBAI: Bahrain insisted Monday on the extradition from Thailand of a footballer convicted for a terrorism offense. Hakeem Al-Araibi was jailed in absentia in 2014 for 10 years on charges related to an\u00a0attack on a police station in 2012. The 25-year-old, who played for Bahrain&#8217;s national youth team, fled his homeland while on bail and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":30997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}