No one really comes out of this too well. The British govt which is prepared to back the Saudi captors version of events in an attempt to keep good relations, or the Saudis if they really thought these men were guilty should have punished according to their laws rather than cut deals in an attempt to pervert justice.
I hope these guys sue the pants off these low lives and their selective application of the Shariah.
February 25, 2004
Don’t back Saudis, say ‘tortured’ Britons
By Daniel McGrory
A BRITISH businessman suing the Saudi authorities over claims that they tortured him into confessing to a terrorist bombing wants the British Government to drop its plans to back his captors in court.
Seven other men also jailed in Saudi Arabia over claims that they were behind a spate of bombings as part of a turf war over alcohol are likely to join the legal test case over suing their alleged torturers.
Since their release from a Saudi jail last year, the expatriates have been demanding compensation for injuries sustained from what they claim were months of systematic torture.
Saudi diplomats in London have refused to meet them, despite secret efforts by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to try to avert what will be a controversial court hearing. The men say that they have medical evidence to show that they were beaten on the feet with axe handles and iron bars until they could not walk, and were left suspended by the arms from the ceiling of their cells to prevent them from sleeping.
Saudi officials claim that the men were freed from prison after an agreement that they would not seek compensation nor publicly criticise their captors. The Britons deny agreeing to such a deal and say that they will refuse any attempt by the Saudi authorities to settle this out of court.
Ron Jones was refused permission last year in the High Court to sue the Saudi Government for £2.5 million but will take his case to the Court of Appeal in May.
At stake is whether the Saudi authorities are protected by Britain’s State Immunity Act. Lawyers from the Department for Constitutional Affairs will support state immunity in this test case. One official said: “We are not going to court to support the Saudis and what they did or didn’t do to British prisoners but to uphold the State Immunity Act.”
Diplomats are worried about the outcome of the case amid suggestions that British detainees freed from Guantanamo Bay may want compensation for their treatment.
Mr Jones, from Hamilton in Lanarkshire, said: “I’m appalled at my own Government. They are saying it is all right for a foreign state to torture Britons, which makes a nonsense of Tony Blair’s support for human rights.”
He was injured in March 2001 after a bomb attack on a bookshop in Riyadh.
The next morning Saudi secret police dragged him from his hospital bed and for the next 67 days he says that they tortured him into confessing that he built, planted and detonated the bomb.
The Saudi authorities still insist that the spate of bombings, which killed a British and an American businessman, was a battle between expatriates for control of the black-market alcohol trade. Western diplomats, however, always believed that local Islamic extremists were to blame.
Recent devastating car bombings aimed at residential compounds occupied by Western workers has forced the Saudis to admit the presence of extremists loyal to Osama bin Laden, although they still insist that the eight Britons were guilty.
The men will produce medical documents this week detailing the torture they suffered. None has been able to work since they were freed because of their injuries.
Lawyers acting for Sandy Mitchell and Les Walker said yesterday that the two and a fellow inmate, Bill Sampson, a Canadian, have made a claim in the High Court for damages and will join Ron Jones in his appeal.
The men, who spent more than two and a half years in a jail, want compensation from two of their interrogators and also from the deputy governor of the prison and the Saudi Interior Minister, Prince Naif bin Abdul Aziz.
Both Mr Mitchell and Mr Sampson were seen on television confessing to the bomb attack which killed the British businessman Christopher Rodway in December, 2000.
The pair were sentenced to death.
Their lawyer, Mark Emery, a solicitor at Bindman and Partners, would not say how much was being sought in what is expected to be a multi-million-pound claim.
But he added: “We are not saying we are not suing the state. It is certainly possible we are going to sue the state. We are very much of the opinion that might occur at some point.”
He said: “The men are coping but they have been through an horrendous experience. Without a shadow of doubt they are innocent.”
James Cottle, James Lee, Peter Brandon and Glen Ballard are also pushing for damages through a law firm in Manchester after their experiences under Saudi detention.