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Freed British Prisoners Accuse Saudis of Torture
Five Britons jailed in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of a series of bomb attacks were mentally and physically tortured right up until their release last week, the fiancee of one of the men said Monday. Gillian Barton, whose boyfriend Jimmy Lee was held in a Riyadh prison for 2-1/2 years until he was freed Friday, said he and four other Britons granted clemency and released at the same time had endured "unbelievable" levels of abuse and torture.
2 and a half years? Crikey!
A spokesman for the Saudi embassy in London rejected any suggestion that Lee and his fellow prisoners had been tortured, saying they had been "well treated."
"For Kaffirs"
Barton told Reuters in a telephone interview: "They were all tortured -- both mentally and physically. Every one of their stories is as horrendous as the other. And it lasted for the whole time ... it was from the beginning to the end. What Jimmy has told me is worse than I could ever have imagined. It is just absolutely unbelievable." Barton declined to give any details of the alleged torture, saying: "It is up to the men to say what has happened to them. They want to say it themselves."
And if they do, the next batch won't get sprung. Funny, how that works...
The five Britons, a Canadian and a Belgian, all of whom had been convicted of carrying out a wave of bombings in Saudi Arabia in 2000 and early 2001, were freed by the Gulf state on Friday. Two of the men had been sentenced to death and, if the sentences had been ratified by King Fahd, would have faced public beheading. The others, including Lee, had been given lengthy prison sentences of up to 12 years. The Saudi embassy spokesman said they were held in air-conditioned rooms with regular access to visitors, lawyers, media, medical care, exercise facilities and whatever food they asked for.
yeah riiggghhhttt
"Torture is illegal in Saudi Arabia," he told Reuters. "If there is any complaint about torture it will be thoroughly investigated and, if convicted, the torturers will be punished."
with pay raises and new houses
He said he was not aware of any formal complaints by the prisoners. Two of the former prisoners — Briton Alexander Mitchell and Canadian William Sampson — had been shown on Saudi television in February 2001 confessing to bomb attacks. The confessions were the only evidence against them made public. They later retracted their confessions and their families and friends have said they believe the men, all held in solitary confinement, had been tortured. Barton, who lived and worked as a nurse in Saudi Arabia until a few months ago, said that while Lee had no visible physical injuries, he was displaying signs of mental distress. "He’s okay in the way he looks. But he looks haunted. He doesn’t quite know what he’s doing, he seems lost," she said, adding Lee was contacting the other prisoners to arrange to get together and tell their story.
Posted by: Frank G 2003-08-11
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=17513