yes. I'll post the article. here's another:
Fears for Brits in Saudi
Innocent ... Ron Jones was tortured for crime he did not commit
By OLIVER HARVEY
AN innocent man tortured by Saudi police for a crime he did not commit said last night he fears five Brits still held by the brutal regime could be beheaded.
Ron Jones was drugged, beaten and forced to confess by police investigating a bombing campaign in the Arab country.
He signed an admission to escape the torture — but was then freed when it became evident that there was not a scrap of evidence against him.
The five Brits still being held by the Saudis face the death penalty if they are convicted of involvement in the terror attacks during a trial held in secret.
Ron, now back in his West Sussex home, said: “My big fear is the Saudi government will make an example of these men.
I know what the Saudis are capable of. I am terrified they face beheading. “I am innocent yet I was tortured and confessed to the same crime they are accused of.
“I have no doubt they made their confessions under duress and my concern now is to see them freed.
”The five Britons’ trial may already have begun. Four of the men — Alexander Mitchell, Les Walker, Jamie Lee and James Cottle — “confessed” on live Saudi TV to their part in the bombing last year.
Another Brit, Peter Brandon, also faces charges. The Saudis claim that the terror campaign, which began in November 2000, stemmed from feuding between rival Western booze-smuggling gangs who sell spirits at up to £125 a bottle.
Briton Christopher Rodway, 47, was killed and his wife Jane, 50, seriously injured in one of the blasts in Riyadh.
The dead man’s father, Jeremy Rodway, has called for the killers to be executed.
But the arrested men’s family and friends say their confessions were forced out of them.
And it is believed that the Saudis concocted the plot to hide the fact that the bombs were the work of terrorists targeting Westerners working in the country.
Three of the Brits are said to be close to mental collapse after months in solitary confinement.
The ordeal of tax adviser Ron, 48, who is married with a young son, began when he was injured in a bomb blast in the Saudi capital Riyadh last year.
He was later taken from his hospital bed by secret police and caged and tortured for 67 harrowing days on trumped-up charges.
Ron, who has never even had a parking ticket — said: “It was hell on Earth. I wept with pain and would have admitted to anything.”
He now suffers post-traumatic stress disorder and is unable to work. Ron moved to Riyadh in November 2000.
He had landed a lucrative job with a Saudi-owned firm which he hoped would set his family up.
On March 15 last year he left a book store to have a cigarette as a bomb exploded in a nearby bin.
He was taken to hospital with wounds on his left side. His cuts were treated in emergency and he was given morphine.
The next day — still in a hospital gown — he was taken to a police station.
Ron recalled: “It was surrounded by a high wall with barbed wire on top. There were armed guards at the gate. I started to get scared.
I had no idea why they had taken me there. I was put in a cell with just a filthy mattress, blanket and loo.
The window was blacked out but they left a light on at all times.
“After two days in solitary confinement the door to my cell opened and there were guards standing there with a pair of handcuffs, shackles and a blindfold.
I freaked.” Ron was taken to a room bare except for a desk and chairs and interrogated by two Saudi secret police officers.
It was a routine repeated night after night. “They told me they knew I was behind the bombing,” Ron said.
“I was kicked in the body and arms. Then they started whacking the soles of my feet with a bamboo cane and an axe handle.
“They would sit me in a chair and make me lift my shackled legs.
They would then beat the soles of my feet. “If I dropped my feet because they hurt or I was tired the beating got worse.
“I was terrified and begged them to stop. I thought I was losing my mind.
I said I was just a tax adviser and had nothing to do with bombings.” The beatings went on for weeks.
“They banged on my door every ten minutes and I was kept awake for days.
I felt so confused,” Ron said. “Another time they put me blindfolded in a swivel chair and spun it — then whacked me each time the chair went round.
They said they knew where my wife and 11-year-old son lived and if I did not co-operate they would torture them as well” Ron was not allowed access to a lawyer and did not see anyone from the British consul until 21 days after he was taken prisoner.
After more than two months his will broke and he signed a false confession, plus a statement saying he had not been maltreated.
But without any evidence against him for even violating Saudi no-booze laws, let alone the bombings, the police accepted he was not guilty of the blasts.
Yet before they let him go, they made Ron make an apology for a false confession, which they blamed on his “fear of solitary confinement”.
He flew home as soon as he got his passport back. “The arrest changed my life completely,” he said.
“I had a secure future ahead of me but now I am a physical and mental wreck.
I was totally innocent.” In January, Ron met Foreign Office minister Baroness Amos, who said the department would support him in his attempt to secure an apology and compensation.
He has given a statement to Scotland Yard. In a report seen by The Sun, top forensic pathologist Dr Nathaniel Cary says: “I have no doubt about the authenticity of Mr Jones’ allegations.”
Ron’s claims are backed by other men who say they were tortured after being accused of bombings then freed.
Paul Moss, 38, a conference manager from Merseyside, said he was kept in solitary for seven weeks, shackled, blindfolded and hit in the testicles.
He says the Saudis also threatened to push him off a jail roof. Labour MP Ann Clwyd, chairman of the Commons human rights group, said: “British nationals continue to be tortured in Saudi Arabia.
“Given that most of those involved in the September 11 incident in New York were also Saudi Arabia citizens, I think the time for soft-shoe diplomacy as far as Saudi Arabia is concerned is over.”
A Foreign Office spokesman said last night: “At every stage we have pursued these cases at the highest levels. The Prime Minister and ministers have taken them up with the Saudi government.”
The Saudi embassy in London declined to comment. Ron said: “I know what horror these men are going through. I pray the Saudis see sense and release them.
thesun.co.uk |
