'I am not quite the man I was'
In his own words, William Sampson tells of his torture and survival in a Saudi prison
William Sampson, with Francine Dubé
National Post
nationalpost.com
CREDIT: Sang Tan, National Post
"My life was already over; to reclaim my integrity would cost me nothing," William Sampson writes. He was photographed in London this week.
LONDON - I was held in solitary confinement in a Saudi Arabian prison for two years, seven months, three weeks and two days.
At the beginning of my incarceration, I was chained upright in my cell, 24 hours a day and subjected to sleep deprivation. I was punched, kicked, hung upside down from a metal bar and beaten with a bamboo cane on the soles of my feet.
I was tortured until I confessed to crimes I did not commit.
I was tried in secret without representation, convicted and sentenced to death by beheading. I am an innocent man and yet I nearly paid with my life for the crimes of others -- for the murder of British engineer Christopher Rodway, a man I did not know -- in a car bombing in the capital city of Riyadh in November, 2000. I was tortured into confessing to being a spy for the British government.
I suffered a heart attack in March, 2001, as a result of the physical abuse I endured. The efforts of my captors to keep me alive at that time made me realize they were frightened of my dying in any but the correct legal manner. I came to believe I would die instead at the hands of a court-appointed executioner. My life was already over; to reclaim my integrity would cost me nothing.
I began to withdraw all co-operation with the interrogators, with prison authorities and with the Canadian government because I felt they were not effectively representing my interests, or capable of properly appreciating my situation.
Every time they took something away from me as a punishment, I refused to accept it back. They took away my soap, my towel, my toothbrush, my clothes, my footwear, my mattress. I refused to wear the thobe, the ankle-length white shirt they had given me to wear. I remained naked in my cell, covering the floors and walls with my excreta so the guards would have to walk through it to get to me. This might appear crazy, but when you're at the bottom of the abyss, it doesn't seem crazy at all.
I am not quite the man I was. I am trying to rediscover the part of me they nearly destroyed.
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I arrived in Riyadh in late July, 1998. I had accepted a contract with the Saudi Industrial Development Fund, which is a government-sponsored development bank.
With my PhD in biochemistry, my MBA and my experience in the pharmaceutical industry, I was to work as a marketing consultant, analyzing the market potential of pharmaceutical and fine chemical manufacturers in the kingdom and assessing their viability with a view to their obtaining low-interest-rate loans.
I am now 44 years old and have never lived more than six years in any location. I have lived and worked on three continents, and travelled through four.
I was born in Nova Scotia to a British father and Canadian mother, but was raised in the U.K. and Singapore, as well as the suburbs of Vancouver, Halifax and Montreal.
I completed university in the U.K. and worked in biochemical research. After completing my MBA, I went to work in Switzerland as a marketing executive in the pharmaceutical industry. I was involved in a business venture in Scotland that was unsuccessful.
I decided to take the job in Riyadh for three reasons. One, I was between jobs and needed to work; two, the financial package was attractive. I would be paid a good basic salary, housing allowance, holiday allowances, car allowance and end-of-contract bonuses. All medical and dental expenses were met by the fund; I paid no taxes. The package was worth in the neighbourhood of $140,000 to $150,000.
Thirdly, I had always been interested in visiting Saudi Arabia, and the easiest way for me to visit the country was to go there to work. I had read all of the books written by the British explorer Wilfred Thesiger, who has just died. He had written extensively of his travels in the Empty Quarter, the vast sand dune desert of Saudi Arabia, in the late 1940s and 1950s. I also wanted to see the Hijaz area, where T. E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, was part of a rebel campaign against the Ottoman Empire, working with Bedouin tribesmen.
I have always been someone who likes to explore out-of-the-way places.
Whilst I am a sociable person when the occasion arises, I am happier travelling and exploring on my own.
Certainly during my time as a free man in Saudi Arabia, the contract lived up to its potential in that respect. I did quite a lot of desert and wilderness trekking in my Nissan four-by-four. I saw the Hijaz, the Empty Quarter, the Red Sands, the mountains of Asir -- four-by-four trekking and camping were my main weekend activities.
Life in Saudi Arabia is extremely comfortable for most Western expatriates. The majority live in large walled compounds with quite big, comfortable, air-conditioned housing, sports facilities, pools and social clubs. Many have housekeepers and drivers. In most cases, those on contracts get their children's school fees covered as well. The affluent lifestyle provides quite an incentive for people not just to take a contract there, but to stay for a long time.
I could have afforded to live in certain of the housing compounds, but many of the large compounds charged exorbitant rents, more than I was willing to pay. I also knew that living in a compound would be like being stuck in suburbia again. I chose to rent a house in the Sulamaniyeh area, in northern Riyadh. As it turned out, it was just a few miles from the jail where, two years later, I would be interrogated and tortured.
My house was a standard, three-bedroom home, with a small swimming pool and garden. It had an eight-foot wall surrounding it, as is normal in Saudi Arabia. The district I was living in had originally housed most of the embassies. It was a good, salubrious neighbourhood. Most of my neighbours were affluent Arab nationals or Saudi Arabians.
It was very convenient to the shopping centres of Riyadh and also for my work. It wasn't that far from any of the major arterial roads out of Riyadh.
For married couples with children, life in Saudi Arabia was quite good, though it did have its challenges; women, for example, are not allowed to drive. When they appear in public they must wear an abeya, the black cloak that covers them from the neck to the ankles. For people there on bachelor contracts, life could be a little more difficult, because the normal forms of social interaction that we are accustomed to in the West are severely restricted or illegal. For example, it is technically illegal for single men and women to be alone in each other's company. Many of the activities we take for granted in the West must be conducted in secret, creating an unhealthy, clandestine atmosphere.
From a social point of view, the most sought-after invitations were to embassy parties. Imported alcohol was always part of these functions. I have never been to one -- or heard of one -- that was dry.
Apart from embassy functions, there was usually a very active social life conducted on the major compounds, involving barbecues, parties, concerts and theatre productions. All these activities were technically illegal, but were known to the authorities.
The establishments that have been referred to in the press as drinking dens were only a small part of that social activity. Most of them were simple social clubs located in large residential compounds. They served home-brewed wine and beer and were open to their residents and guests of the residents, who were all Western expatriates, male and female.
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The clubs that gained notoriety in the press were a few establishments open to all Western expatriates. They were in small compounds or individual houses. They included the Empire, run by Gary Dixon, a British national also known as Gary O'nions, the Tudor Rose, Shenanigans, the Leg's Arms, Melrose Place and the Celtic Corner, founded by Scotsman Sandy Mitchell and later sold to Kelvin Hawkins, also a Briton.
The proprietors of these establishments all had full-time jobs working for multi-national corporations, health care or Saudi Arabian government organizations.
Most of the clubs, both on and off compound, were decorated like typical British pubs, right down to the hand pumps. The atmosphere was no different from the Digger's in Edinburgh, a pub I frequented when I lived in Scotland. Occasionally the clubs served smuggled alcohol, but it was extremely dear. A bottle of Johnny Walker sold for $250.
I would call in at these establishments at least once a week, on the weekend, sometimes more often, to be honest. They served as a convenient place to meet up with friends.
My closest friends in Riyadh were Sandy, who was the chief anaesthetic technician at the Security Forces Hospital, which belongs to the Ministry of Interior; Raf Schevyns, a trauma co-ordinator from Belgium, who worked at the Saudi Arabian National Guard Hospital; and Les Walker, a Briton who worked as compound manager for the Al Izdihar compounds, housing British Aerospace employees. Les also helped out Sandy at the Celtic Club before Sandy sold it in 1999, after the birth of his first son.
I've never been able to define what it is that makes for good friends. Sandy was a scuba diver; Raf was an accomplished piper and Celtic musician; Les, who was in his fifties, was the cuddly uncle. Somehow the four of us, with our disparate backgrounds, enjoyed a relaxed, uncompetitive relationship, making fun of each other and ourselves.
We could not foresee that our close friendship would be used to falsely implicate us in the bombings that killed Christopher Rodway and injured other Western expatriates. In February, 2001, videotapes were broadcast of Raf, Sandy and myself, confessing to the bombings. Those confessions were obtained by torture. They were false.
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Saudis had been turning a blind eye to these clubs for years, but began cracking down on them in mid-1998. In the early 1990s, just after the first Gulf War, Riyadh had adopted a much more open atmosphere, where such activities were better tolerated. I don't know why the crackdowns started, but I believe that as the number of expats dropped, it became easier for the fundamentalists and the Muttawa religious police to target such activities.
The Saudis told Western authorities we were involved in a turf war for control of the illegal alcohol trade. This accusation was and is spurious. All the clubs that operated in Riyadh worked on a co-operative basis. Quite frequently, if one establishment was running low on beer, another establishment would lend it beer. All of those who ran the clubs socialized with each other, in each other's clubs. I had nothing to do with alcohol smuggling. Nor did any of my friends.
One of the activities I came to be involved in, through Sandy Mitchell, was visiting Western expatriates who were being held in local police stations for offences ranging from innocent violations of Shariah law to running an illegal club.
The way things operate in Saudi Arabia, minor infringements were at that time usually swept under the carpet, if someone with some "wasta" -- or influence -- could get down to the prison and sort out the details.
Sandy Mitchell performed this function very effectively. Through his position at the Security Forces hospital, he had developed good relations with a number of senior police officers and was able to use his position for the benefit of expatriates who were in trouble.
Sandy did it because he had the ability to do so and because of his generous nature. I did it because he asked me to help him. I have a bad habit of not turning my back on people when they ask me for help. I have a bad habit of not thinking about the consequences if I do help.
One bar owner, whose social club had been trashed by the Muttawa following his arrest, became terrified for his life and turned to Sandy and me for help in getting to Damman, a city in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, from which he could escape into Dubai or Bahrain. I agreed to get him out of Riyadh and dropped him off with some people he knew in Damman. Had I been arrested with him in the car, as he was leaving Riyadh illegally, I would have been in a considerable amount of trouble. It was a risk I was willing to take because the man was terrified, and I know now, justifiably so. Although there were two checkpoints along the way, we were not stopped. In fact, I required assistance from highway patrol for two flat tires. They were most helpful.
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We also helped Peter and Annie Goldsmith, Britons who had been arrested after the Muttawa, searching for a bootlegger, raided the house next door to theirs. Not finding their bootlegger, the Muttawa raided the Goldsmiths' residence and found litres of home-brewed alcohol, which they had been making for a series of Christmas and New Year's parties of their own. I had been on my way to visit them and got caught up in their arrest. I spent two nights in jail, but because of my company's "wasta," I was released. I was never charged with anything. Being arrested and released in this manner was considered one of the hazards of life in Saudi Arabia, considering that nearly all our normal activities were illegal under their law. I was not particularly concerned.
After my release, Raf and I visited the Goldsmiths in the local prisons, providing them with small amounts of money to buy food, changes of clothes, toothbrushes, toothpaste and soap. I drew up a letter asking for clemency from Saudi authorities, which I dictated to the Goldsmiths' daughters. Given the time of year, Ramadan, I believe this plea for clemency greatly assisted in their release.
I also believe it was these activities that brought us to the attention of Saudi authorities and made us targets.
I had been enjoying my life in Saudi Arabia, simply because I made it enjoyable, but after nearly three years I was ready for change. My intention had been to finish my contract in June, 2001, and then leave.
I obviously didn't get the opportunity.
In the second half of 2000, the activities of the Muttawa had become more frequent and more aggressive. They had begun to arrest Westerners caught window-shopping during prayer call. They had even begun to demand the identity documents of Western couples who were on their own. If unmarried, they would be arrested; unmarried men and women are not permitted to socialize. The atmosphere in Riyadh was becoming increasingly tense. Coupled with this, the intifada in the Occupied Territories had begun and was receiving widespread support in Saudi Arabia. Expressions of anti-Western sentiment were becoming increasingly common.
The bombing, when it occurred, came as a complete surprise. I did not know that the explosion that took Christopher Rodway's life in November, 2000, would come close to taking my own.
On Monday: William Sampson writes about his arrest in December, 2000, and how torture was used to extract a false confession from him.; Global Sunday: Exclusive: William Sampson, who was imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for more than two years, breaks his silence about his ordeal in a world exclusive interview, to be broadcast tomorrow on the season premiere of Global Sunday. Airing in British Columbia, Lethbridge, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Atlantic Canada at 5:30 p.m., and in Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec and Ontario at 6:30 p.m.
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