RIYADH, 12 July 2003 — The Families of the five Britons jailed in Saudi Arabia on bombing charges are hopeful that the case will come to a conclusion following the meeting on Thursday between Saudi Ambassador to Britain Prince Turki Al-Faisal and a delegation of six Westminster members of parliament led by Jon Lyons, Labour MP for Strathkevin and Bearsden.

“The meeting between the Saudi ambassador and the British MPs is a positive development,” the law firm representing the Britons said here yesterday. But Nick Abbot, the information officer at the British Embassy, told Arab News that “the meeting between Prince Turki and the British MPs has nothing to do with the British government.”

A report published by the British newspaper the Glasgow Herald yesterday said that the British MPs spent more than an hour with Prince Turki, setting out the case for clemency and examining other possibilities.

The paper quoted Lyons as saying afterward: “We are cautiously optimistic. It was a good, positive meeting and all of us were encouraged by the dialogue with the ambassador.”

Sandy Mitchell, a Scot who faces beheading, is among the five Britons who have been held for three years since the bombings, blamed by the authorities on turf wars among Westerners over bootleg alcohol.

Relatives of the Britons have released an emotional appeal seeking the release of the men by a royal pardon. Another appeal in the form an open letter was published in the UK press in April this year.

A spokesman for the British Embassy earlier said: “All Britons are in good health and the embassy has had regular consular access to the detainees. They are being looked after properly by the local authorities”.

The five Britons were arrested in the Kingdom over the bombings that killed another Briton, Christopher Rodway, and left two other Britons and an Irish woman injured.

In June 2000, a Briton was killed in a car blast in Riyadh, while in the same month Saudi police defused an explosive device under a car owned by an American couple.

The government says the blasts targeted Westerners involved in a multi-million dollar alcohol smuggling business.

A series of blasts in Saudi Arabia during the last four years have been linked to alcohol trading.

Another explosion in a metal bin on March 15, 2001 left a Briton and an Egyptian slightly wounded.