Expatriates Sue Saudi Arabia for Torture

By Quentin Webb

LONDON (Reuters) - Seven Western expatriates who say they were tortured by Saudi Arabia to confess to carrying out a bombing campaign have begun lawsuits against Saudi officials, their lawyers said Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia denies they were tortured.

The six Britons and a Canadian were freed in August last year after being jailed for a wave of bombings in 2000 and early 2001, one of which killed a British businessman.

Two of the men had confessed to the attacks and were sentenced to death by crucifixion. The Saudis blamed the attacks on Western liquor bootleggers, but the families of the men said they were probably carried out by Islamic militants.

Mark Emery of lawyers Bindman and Partners said his and a second firm had launched a case in Britain's High Court seeking damages for the men, who were granted clemency and freed after months of behind the scenes diplomacy, but never exonerated.

"It's horrendous. They were severely and badly battered and beaten," Bindman solicitor Emery told Reuters. "It was very methodical and long-term; it was months of brutality."

He said Saudi jailers would torture the prisoners for six hours at a stretch, using techniques such as beatings on the soles of the feet, before handcuffing the men standing up to prevent them sleeping.

"We have issued legal proceedings against the two torturers and two people higher up the chain of command, for damages."

The Saudi foreign minister rejected the charges.

"This claim is not serious in my opinion and will not be accepted in the courts," Prince Saud al-Faisal told a news conference in Riyadh. "Our hope was that they would not take these measures, because in fact the kingdom took good care of them."

He said the men had been granted an amnesty after direct appeals from their families to the kingdom's ruler, King Fahd, and they had thanked the Saudi government at the time.

The expatriates include Briton Alexander "Sandy" Mitchell and Canadian William Sampson, who were shown on Saudi television confessing to attacks in the capital Riyadh and were later sentenced to death by partial beheading and crucifixion.

Britons Les Walker, James Cottle, James Patrick Lee and Peter Brandon received lengthy jail terms, and another, Glen Ballard, was detained without charge for 10 months.