DUBAI: Bahrain interrogated its top opposition leader on Wednesday after expelling a senior US diplomat for meeting him, a remarkable slap at Washington from the ally that hosts the US Navy’s Middle East fleet.

US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Tom Malinowski left Bahrain late on Tuesday, the US Embassy said, after the Foreign Ministry ordered him out because he had “intervened flagrantly” in the country’s internal affairs by “holding meetings with one party.”

Washington said it was “deeply concerned” about Malinowski’s expulsion and was considering a response.

Malinowski attended a Ramadan evening meeting of opposition group Al-Wefaq on Sunday and met with its leader Ali Salman and an aide again at the US Embassy on Monday.

Salman was summoned by the Interior Ministry and interrogated at the Criminal Investigations Department on Wednesday morning. He told Reuters he was questioned for about half an hour. His lawyers were not allowed to be present but were permitted to observe from another room.

“The subject of the interrogation was ... about the content of the (embassy) meeting and what was discussed at it,” he told Reuters from Manama. “The answer was that it was a normal meeting and that they (Americans) heard our point of view of the political and human rights situation in Bahrain, based on the request of the US Assistant Secretary.”

He said he was asked whether Wefaq had made specific requests of the Americans and replied that they had not.

The Interior Ministry said Salman and the aide had been summoned for interrogation because they violated a law about “the rules of communication between political societies with foreign political organizations or parties.”