Oreibi arrives in Thai court to face extradition request

LONDON (Reuters) – Bahrain 's imprisoned footballer Hakim Oreibi, who fled his country and has refugee status in Australia, arrived in Thai court on Monday, clenched in his feet, to face his demand for a court case. extradition to Bahrain.

Journalists, activists and officials, including Australia's ambbadador to Thailand, Alan McKinnon, waited to greet Ureybi, entered the courtroom dressed in a prison uniform light brown.

"Do not send me to Bahrain," said the football player. Oreibi says that he will face persecution and torture when he is extradited.

Authorities arrested Oreibi in November during his honeymoon in Bangkok, according to a notice issued by Interpol at the request of Bahrain, from which he had escaped in 2014 and had got asylum in Australia.

Former Australian team leader Craig Foster, who was campaigning around the world to release Oreibi, also appeared in court to show his support for the Bahraini refugee.

"Your wife is sending you her love and Australia stands by you, my friend," said Foster, shouting at Oreibi who beckoned to his supporters. "Be strong, be wise."

Last week, a Thai prosecutor filed an extradition request from Bahrain with the court claiming that it showed that Ureybi had committed a criminal offense and therefore had to be extradited.

Oreibi was found guilty of vandalizing a police station in Bahrain. He was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison, but he denies any wrongdoing and claims that he was participating in a televised match at the same time as the center.

"The judge will tell the court that he will not return to Bahrain," his lawyer Nadtaseiri Burjman told Reuters before Monday's session. She said the court would set the date for the next hearing.

"We are not concerned about the law because we have evidence that it should not be returned to Bahrain," she said.

Chathom Akabin, director of the Department of International Affairs of the Thai Attorney General's Office, said the judicial proceedings before the court on Ureybi's extradition "would take months".