The Jeddah Prisons Authority has launched a probe into the alleged assault on a prisoner by fellow inmates in Briman Prison.
It appears the alleged victim was assaulted over a dispute involving SR100. It also seemed as if one inmate wanted to punish him for being convicted of drug dealing.
Maj. Abdullah Al-Harbi, spokesman for the authority, told a local daily on Thursday that the probe into the incident was under way.
Hussain Al-Shareef, chief of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), said the organization received a complaint from the victim’s family and is following it up with the prisons authority. He called for an immediate investigation and said the prison management would be to blame if the incident turns out to be true.
This follows the posting of the undated video of the alleged assault on various social media websites on Wednesday and a report on the incident in a local newspaper.
The video of just over two minutes shows a group of inmates tying the victim’s hands behind his back, suspending him by his feet in the air with a rope hooked to the ceiling, and repeatedly slapping him in the face. Ropes and phones are not allowed in prison cells.
The alleged assault happened in Ward 7 at the Briman Prison in Jeddah. “Oh, I just love to watch such scenes,” said a bearded man, who appeared to lead the alleged torture session. “You don’t know what mistake you’ve made, do you?” the man asked. “No, I don’t,” the victim replied. “Please let me go, I’m going to faint,” he said, as his alleged tormentor swung him around in the air and slapped him in the face. “If you tell me who asked you to take SR100 from here to fetch dinner, I will let you go,” the man told the alleged victim at the end of the clip.
Prisoners usually pool the money they receive from the prison management to order food and beverages. No prison warders turned up to rescue the victim. And none of the inmates appeared to call for them either.
In an earlier leaked video, the alleged victim is asked why he was in prison. “Drug dealing ... 100 pills,” the victim responded.
“What a shame! Now you will reap what you have sown and I will show you how. This is what you’ll get in this life and more on the Day of Judgment,” his alleged tormentor said.
A local Arabic daily reported on Wednesday that the videos were leaked by an inmate who sympathized with the man. The newspaper also quoted the brother of the alleged victim.
“My brother was taken into custody three months ago in a drug case,” the alleged victim’s brother told the daily. “He suffers from schizophrenia and other psychological disorders and was briefly treated at Al-Amal Hospital. Where is the monitoring system of prison cells?” he said.
The alleged victim’s brother said he filed a complaint with the prisons authority, Makkah Governorate, and the NSHR.
