Bahraini protester says embassy staff tried to kill him in London

A Bahraini protester has lodged a complaint with London police on Tuesday, saying he was beaten and threatened with being thrown off the roof of Bahrain’s embassy in London in July.

Moosa Abd Ali told Charring Cross police he was a victim of attempted murder when he filed a statement with his lawyers, saying that embassy staff attempted to push him off the roof while another threatened to have him executed, The Guardian has reported. 

Video footage posted on Twitter in July showed the man, named by fellow protesters as Abd Ali, scaling the roof of the embassy before disappearing from view.

"We have two people being executed in Bahrain and you will be the third," one of the embassy staffers told Abd Ali, his statement to the police said. In a Twitter post, Abd Ali said he believes the staffers "attempted to murder" him. 

Abd Ali earlier wrote on his Twitter page that he was demonstrating against the execution of two men, named by him as Shia citizens Ali al Arab and Ahmed al Malali, on terror charges.

A police statement at the time confirmed that they were called to "the Embassy of The Kingdom of Bahrain at 22:47hrs (2147 GMT) on Friday, 27 July following a report of a man on the roof of the building."

"Upon hearing a disturbance on the roof, officers entered the building and detained the man.

"The man ... was arrested for trespass ... He is currently in police custody."

Police said they followed firefighters into the west London building.

Campaigners said the authorities broke down the door, although the London Fire Brigade would not confirm this account.

The footage also showed police demanding that embassy staff "get away from" the protester while he was on the roof.

Protest group The Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) claimed the protester was "pulled from the ledge of the roof by embassy staff ... and assaulted by two embassy staff."

"He stated that he sustained injuries and bleeding during the assault," added BIRD director Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei.

The convicts were put to death by firing squad in July.

Last year's killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a writer and US resident who was strangled and dismembered after being lured into Saudi Arabia's Istanbul consulate sparked worldwide condemnation and a debate on the limits of diplomatic immunity.

Bahrain, a key US ally located between regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, has been gripped by bouts of unrest since 2011 when authorities cracked down on Shia-led protests, demanding a bigger role in running the country.

The pair were convicted of "forming a terror group" that went on to carry out a series of armed attacks in the kingdom.

They included the storming of the kingdom's Jaw prison in January 2017 that killed a guard and led to the escape of 10 detainees, the prosecutor said.