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convicted in the exercise of any jurisdiction of Her Majesty’s in Bahrain’, and that the

warrant that was delivered to HMS Loch Insh was not valid under the Act ‘because it

was executed by the Ruler of Bahrain before the Order sanctioning the agreement

had come into force in Bahrain’. The hearing lasted from 17 to 20 March 1959.

Unfortunately for Al-Bakir, the court’s Chief Justice, Justice Lionel Brett, dismissed

the summons. Al-Bakir then appealed to the Privy Council’s Judicial Committee on

12 August 1959. 906 The appeal was yet again unsuccessful as it was declared on 1

June 1960. 907

The internal pressure in Britain to release the prisoners was feared, Richard

A Beaumont at the Arabian Department of the FO (formerly the Eastern

Department), noted, however, that on the prisoners in St Helena issue, ‘No Arab

diplomatic missions in London have (to the best of my knowledge) taken up this

question with us’. Nevertheless, to relieve the Government from pressure at home

Beaumont proposed three possible solutions: to ‘ride out the political storm in the

House of Commons’; to convince the Ruler to pardon the prisoners; and/or to return

the men to Bahrain were they would serve out the remainder of their prison

sentences. 908 A new development transpired vis-à-vis the prisoners’ case in the

second-half of 1960. A letter from Sheridan to JC McPetrie at the Colonial Office on

24 October 1960 found at TNA suggested that the ship that carried the prisoners to

906 In the Privy Council: On Appeal: From the Supreme court of St Helena (No. 43) (1959), The
Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales, 1959.
907 ‘Justice v. Politics’, The Observer, 18 June 1961, 36.
908 TNA, FO 371/149133, R.A. Beaumont on Bahraini Prisoners on St Helena, 30 September 1960.

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