Mr Beale also stood accused of giving "inaccurate and misleading" explanations to a select committee of MPs.

BBC: War of words over Rover collapse

Certainly, many of the opposition's charges seem far-fetched such as the assertion that the government is giving its victims cancer but so are officials' explanations that involve parents beating the corpses of their children to make it look as if they were pummelled to death by the police.

ECONOMIST: Bahrain