BEIRUT, 31 January — Interior Minister Prince Naif yesterday denied as "totally baseless" the press reports that British suspects of a series of bombings in the Kingdom had been tortured in Saudi jails. "These reports are part of a media campaign being launched by the West against Saudi Arabia," he told reporters after attending a conference of Arab interior ministers.
Britain’s Foreign Office said earlier that it had made "vigorous" representations to Saudi Arabia over the case of four Britons, who were allegedly tortured by secret police seeking confessions.
The torture allegations were made by three released Britons — Paul Moss, who now lives in Australia; David Mornin, from Scotland; and Kelvin Hawkins, from Yorkshire, northern England — in interviews with the Guardian newspaper.
They were among a group of Westerners arrested in connection with a series of blasts in Riyadh and Alkhobar which started in November 2000 in which a Briton was killed and an American injured. They were jailed on minor alcohol charges and given an amnesty last month.
Four other Britons — Sandy Mitchell, Jimmy Cottle, James Lee and Les Walker — together with a Canadian, Bill Sampson, and a Belgian, Raf Schyvens, confessed on Saudi Television to their involvement in the blasts.
Speaking of his alleged torture at the hands of the Saudis, Moss told the Guardian: "They put me in an isolation cell and wouldn’t let me sleep... I had no sleep at all for seven days and I collapsed, hallucinating."
The Saudi Embassy in London told the Guardian: "We don’t use torture. It is against Islamic teachings. The ambassador will be making a full statement in due course."
But the Foreign Office expressed concern about the torture allegations and the men still detained.
Speaking to newsmen at the end of the interior ministers conference in Beirut, Prince Naif said the Kingdom was concerned over the nearly 100 Saudi detainees in a US base in Cuba. "The Saudi government is following up the condition of these detainees despite their wrongdoings," he added. On the US response to the Kingdom’s demand to hand over Saudis held in Guantanamo Bay, Prince Naif said: "There was no official response from the United States." However, he pointed out that there were positive indications in a recent statement of US President George W. Bush.
"But in any case we will ask for their return and that is our right. At the same time, we will not object to the interrogation of Saudi detainees by the United States," he said. After all, the prince said, they have to return to the Kingdom where they will be subject to Saudi laws and justice. Prince Naif disclosed on Monday for the first time that more than 100 of 158 Al-Qaeda suspects detained in Guantanamo Bay were Saudi. Prince Naif also backed a statement of Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, that was critical of America’s Middle East policy. "It shows the crown prince wanted to have strong relations between the US and Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries on the basis of mutual confidence," he said. "The crown prince has said that the present US stand was not in tune with its previous stand on the Middle East peace," he said, and urged the implementation of international resolutions that call for the establishment of a Palestine state with Jerusalem as its capital.
Asked whether the Beirut conference had discussed the issue of Arabs detained in Afghanistan, he said: "This issue did not come up during the talks. But it is natural that each country will demand the United States hand over its detained citizens."
