UK Home Secretary Priti Patel slammed for visiting notorious Bahrain police station

Patel also praised the Gulf country for its "progress to achieve common interests," the report said, citing local media.

The UK minister has been under fire recently after an inquiry found that she engaged in bullying behaviour towards her staff.

Human rights watchdogs and alleged torture victims have slammed Patel's visit to the Muharraq Governorate Police station.

"I can't understand why Priti Patel would pay a state visit to the same police station, flanked by the people who have allowed my torturers to walk free," Yusuf Al-Jamri, who was granted asylum in the UK after suffering torture at the hands of Bahrain's infamous National Security Agency at the police station told The Independent.

"How can the Home Office accept that I was tortured at this site, then send the home secretary there for a photo opportunity?" Jamri added.

Ebtisam Al-Saegh, a former political detainee accused Patel of "helping to whitewash the abuses", according to the report.

"I could have shown her round the rooms I was tortured in and shared the grave reality individuals like myself were subjected to," Saegh told The Independent.

Read also: 'It hit home': Hamilton moved by letter from 11-year-old son of Bahrain death row prisoner

The visit was not publicised in the UK and happened despite a BBC report about torture and sexual abuse in Muharraq being broadcast last March.

Bahrain has launched a massive crackdown on pro-democracy protests since 2011, detaining activists, journalists and government critics without trial.

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