My eleven days of Saudi torture

William Sampson, with Francine Dube
Original link: "My eleven days of Saudi torture" (William Sampson with Francine Dubé, National Post, 2003/09/08)

From: "William Sampson: Confession, torture and freedom - in his own words" (National Post, 2003/09/12)

Part 1: "'I am not quite the man I was'" (William Sampson with Francine Dubé, National Post/Watch, 2003/09/06)
Part 2: "My eleven days of Saudi torture" (William Sampson with Francine Dubé, National Post/Watch, 2003/09/08)
Part 3: "'I was having a heart attack'" (William Sampson with Francine Dubé, National Post/Watch, 2003/09/09)
Part 4: "And then I began to fight back" (William Sampson with Francine Dubé, National Post/Watch, 2003/09/10)
Part 5: "I angrily lunged toward my father" (William Sampson with Francine Dubé, National Post/Watch, 2003/09/11)

My eleven days of Saudi torture

William Sampson, with Francine Dubé
National Post

In the second of a five-part series, William Sampson tells of the foreboding that preceded his arrest and the abuses that followed it.

- - -

LONDON - On the morning of Dec. 17, 2000, before leaving home for my office in Riyadh, I switched on Sky News and learned that a Briton had been injured in a bombing in Damman, on the east coast of Saudi Arabia, about 500 kilometres away. It was the third bombing attack against Westerners in Saudi Arabia since Nov. 17, when British engineer Christopher Rodway was killed by a car bomb and his wife injured.

I rushed out the front gate in my usual haste, as I was late, only to find that my Nissan 4x4 had a flat tire. Somewhat miffed, I walked off to catch a cab at the main road. A grey four-door sedan pulled up beside me. Three plainclothes Saudi secret police piled out, one of them waving a gun in his right hand and what I assumed was a warrant in the left. The two other officers grabbed me, ripped my briefcase out of my hands and emptied my pockets. They punched me in the stomach, crotch and back of the head.

They handcuffed me and bundled me into the back of the car.

"I am not resisting. Why are you doing this? Why are you hitting me?" I said. They screamed at me to shut up. I realized that having arrested my friend Raf Schevyns in connection with one of the car bombings, the secret police were now casting their net much wider to implicate his friends. "Oh shit, they're going to try to frame us," I thought.

We drove off in the sedan, stopping a short distance later to pick up another secret police officer. Two of them sat in the back seat and held my legs apart while an officer in the front reached around and hit my crotch area 10 to 15 times over the course of the drive with a heavy metal object, which I took to be the gun. They asked me in English if I spoke Arabic. I said no.

We drove on in silence for about half an hour, before the car stopped at what sounded like a large mechanical gate. I heard it close behind us. Still blindfolded and handcuffed, I was dragged out of the car by my tie and led into a building like a dog on a leash.

Inside the building, the blindfold was removed and I was led into a windowless prison cell with the number 24 chalked above it in Arabic numerals. It was 2x3 metres, with a dirty cotton mattress on the floor, a closed-circuit camera mounted in the upper left-hand corner and an air conditioner in the wall.

I was handcuffed to a grill in the door in order to stop me from sitting or relaxing; sleep would be impossible. It would be dishonest of me to say that I was not terrified. I felt that at any moment I would lose control of my bowels and bladder. My crotch was sore, but not intolerably so. I also knew that I had to take note of my surroundings and everything that happened to me, both as a way to occupy my thoughts and time, and to provide information that might be useful later if I had to debrief consular authorities about my treatment or the location of the prison.

I was left there for about an hour before I was brought upstairs to an interrogation room, where the torture began. Six days later, wracked by unbearable pain, I would confess to two car bombings and to being a British spy. I would later learn that my sentence for these crimes was death by al-hadd -- I was to be affixed to a wooden X and sliced through the neck with a sword, leaving my head attached.

- - -

From the day I arrived in Saudi Arabia in 1998 to begin my employment as a marketing consultant for the Saudi Industrial Development Fund in Riyadh, I realized that all was not as it appeared. There was a smooth, shiny surface to life in the kingdom, under which I could sense increasing turbulence, dissatisfaction and dissent. My Saudi colleagues were warm and welcoming, as I had come to expect of Arabic hospitality.

On the other hand, three days after arriving in the capital, while walking through a district not frequented by Westerners, I was spat upon.

This dichotomy of reactions was repeated frequently. Situations of turbulence and potential danger do not worry me as they should. I was aware that tensions were gradually building, but I felt capable of dealing with the situation as it arose.

So whilst the first explosion that killed Christopher Rodway on Nov. 17, 2000, horrified me, the fact that it happened was not a complete surprise. Still, I became more cautious. I began to pay more attention to my vehicle and where I parked it, choosing well-lit places where there were lots of people. Upon returning to it, I would examine the undercarriage and look under the hood before climbing in. I would check the wheel wells and examine the door frame for scratches that would indicate someone had broken in.

On the morning of Nov. 23, six days after Christopher Rodway was killed, my friend Sandy Mitchell, chief anesthetic technician for the Security Forces Hospital for the Ministry of Interior, came to my house and woke me with the news that our friend Raf had almost been injured in a car bombing the night before. The information brought me to full consciousness at the speed of light. Sandy and I went at once to find Raf and see how he was.

Raf was shaken up, as one would expect. He had left a party at the Celtic Corner, a bar run by Western expatriates on the al-Fallah housing compound in a convoy of three vehicles, sometime after 11 p.m., to attend another party. A few minutes into the drive, a bomb exploded under the right front side of the lead vehicle, a GMC 4x4.

Everyone pulled over. Raf, being a trauma co-ordinator, immediately contacted emergency services and then began to render assistance, providing first aid.

Emergency service and police arrived. The injured were removed to hospital. The police then interviewed those at the scene, including members of the convoy. Raf, shocked by the experience, returned to his house on the Saudi Arabian National Guard Hospital compound.

The secret police made a point of interviewing everyone who had been travelling in the convoy, including those injured. Raf was the last to be questioned, around Dec. 8. He was rattled by his interview with police. He told me they had accused him of being the bomber.

Being innocent, he didn't believe anything would come of the accusation.

Alarm bells began going off for me. It was like the feeling you get at the start of an examination or a race. I felt an immediate increase in tension. I sensed that the investigating officers hadn't worked out a scenario yet, but they were trying to patch one together. If my worst fears were realized, I knew they would be casting their net wider, to implicate Raf's friends in whatever plot they were constructing. I knew I would be among them.

Two days later, Raf was arrested by the secret police. I immediately contacted the Belgian embassy and spent the next week in communication with them, attempting to locate my friend. He just disappeared off the face of the Earth. I was unable to locate which jail he was in. I knew this was ominous. Obviously, the secret police were holding him at one of their hidden centres.

I could have left then. I could have left Saudi Arabia. With my vehicle and the money in my bank account, I had the resources necessary to get to Dubai. Once there, I would have found my way out on a freighter bound for Shangai for all I would have cared.

However I could never abandon my friends. I knew that to do so would have been used as evidence against them.

I was arrested seven days after Raf.

- - -

About an hour after I was abducted from my home on Dec. 17, 2000, and brought to the jail, the process of brutalization began.

The torture took place in offices upstairs from my cell. I nicknamed my torturers -- Mr. Acne had a pock-marked face and burning eyes. The Midget had a look of smug stupidity that reminded me of Dopey the dwarf. The Greaser had a pencil-thin moustache.

At the first interrogation on the day of my arrest, Mr. Acne, the only English speaker of the three, acting both as an interrogator and translator, told me they knew who I was, what I had done, that I was guilty of setting off the three car bombs and that I would tell them everything they wanted.

They bounced me around the room as if playing a violent game of pass-the-parcel. I was pushed to the floor and repeatedly kicked in the backside, crotch and stomach. My head was held up and I was slapped on the back of the head and face, around the ears.

They took inordinate care not to hit me in the front of the face.

They threatened me with the use of electric shocks. I was told they would continue to apply this pressure until "We have put you in the right way," and "we get your mind right."

There was a desk and chairs in the room. From time to time they would sit me down, the Greaser beside me, aggressively caressing and fondling me, a means of sexual intimidation he was to use often.

My mind was blank, except for fear.

They asked me where I was and what I was doing on Nov. 17, Nov. 22, and Dec. 15, the dates the bombings took place. I told them I didn't know what they were talking about, that I was innocent. I provided them with extensive alibis.

I was subjected to another round of beatings. The truth was not what they wanted. When they realized my alibi was too tight for the third day -- I had been in too many public places and had too many appointments -- they dropped the demand that I confess to the bombing of Dec. 15.

I don't have a clue how long that first interrogation lasted, but it continued after prayer in the evening, so it went on for many hours.

Thus began the cycle that I was to endure for 11 days. Every evening I would be taken from my cell to the interrogation offices, where I would be tortured. Near dawn I would be returned to my cell, where I was handcuffed, standing to the door, unable to sleep. Occasionally I would pass out standing up from exhaustion and pain, only to be revived by the near-dislocation of my shoulder as I slipped toward the concrete floor.

With no writing materials available to me, I devised a rudimentary means of keeping track of what was happening. Chicken and rice was a staple of my prison diet from which I extracted grains of rice, using them as an aide-mémoire. A normal grain of rice represented the numbers of days. Stained rice indicated the days I had been tortured. A grain of rice that had been bitten signified a night of sleep deprivation. I was allowed to sit on my mattress during meals. I slipped the grains of rice into the seams.

Sometime on the morning of the third day, I was taken to a doctor for examination. I was exhausted, I had had not slept at all, I was bruised and one of my teeth was already broken. He signed me fit for further interrogation. I have often wondered how that conforms to the Hippocratic oath.

That night, I was blindfolded, handcuffed and shackled and driven by van to my house to witness the police search of the premises. It was full of uniformed police officers and two members of the Muttawa, the religious police. Finding a beer stein, one of the officers punched me in the face with it, accusing me of immorality. I replied that the beer stein was purchased at the Home Center in Riyadh. They found a bottle of alcohol that must have been planted as I never kept alcohol in my home. Possession and consumption of alcohol is illegal in Saudi Arabia, although the authorities normally choose to turn a blind eye to the practice.

The officers told me they had found drugs, though they produced no evidence to support that claim.

There was none to find. I had never done drugs in Saudi Arabia nor allowed anyone to use them in my home. Drug possession carries the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. They claimed a compass and a monocular were evidence I was a spy. I giggled, I really did. Terrifying as this was, things had become surreal and absurd.

They confiscated my computer and personal financial documents. They collected an axe handle, which they would later use to beat me and my friends who had also been arrested.

I was then pushed into the back of the van and driven back to the interrogation centre, where just before dawn, a new form of torture was introduced. I was made to sit on the floor, draw my knees to my chest and place my handcuffed arms over my legs. A metal bar was inserted between the back of my knees and my forearms. The bar was picked up and placed across two chairs. My body rotated into an upside down position known as "the chicken." The Midget began falaka, beating the soles of my feet with the pick-axe handle they had confiscated from my home. They beat my buttocks with it, and occasionally, the back of my crotch. He was amazingly accurate, cycling the attacks from my feet to my buttocks, able to land blows side-by-side without ever hitting the same place twice in a row.

By the fourth day my feet and ankles were so swollen from standing night and day and being beaten that I was unable to wear my shoes. The prison doctor applied an anti-inflammatory cream and I was later returned to the interrogation room. Having once again outlined their preposterous scenario, Mr. Acne, the English speaker, stated that even if I wasn't convicted for the bombings, they would convict me for being a homosexual, since, as I was unmarried, I must be homosexual. The practice of homosexuality in Saudi Arabia is punishable by death. They told me I would never leave the place until I had confessed to the bombings. They said there were things they could do to me which I could not imagine. I have a good imagination, but that failed me for the horror I was about to experience.

They began to make threats against my friends and family. They threatened to imprison Noy, Sandy's wife, and subject her to physical abuse. Implicit was the threat of rape. They threatened to lure my father to the kingdom and treat him as they were treating me.

It is hard to say how much time was passing, because when you're being beaten and in pain, time dilates in a way you wouldn't believe. Every second is an hour. Every hour is a week. A day is an eternity.

When my feet were beaten, I thought my head would explode. It was a pain I thought could get no worse. When they hit my crotch I knew I was wrong. I felt a wave of pressure explode through my body. I could feel the blood surging through my ears and eyes as if desperately seeking for a way out. My whole body became a knot of pain. The ferocity of the beatings caused the muscles in my back, stomach, neck, arms and shoulders to cramp, increasing the pain.

I screamed so loud I thought my vocal chords would rupture. They told me to shut up. My face was awash with tears. I tried to control myself, but what was being done to me placed my body beyond control.

During the brief respites from the beatings, I could hear the screams of others, including the screams of women. Even when in my cell, away from the interrogation rooms, I could hear their screams, such was the ferocity that was unleashed on captives in the prison.

- - -

On the sixth day I begged to confess. I was hanging upside down, being beaten with a stick. I was broken. The pain was too much. I pleaded to confess. I pleaded for permission to tell them whatever it was they wanted.

I was temporarily released from my agony. My torturers became conciliatory and friendly, though their facade was as transparent as glass.

I was sat down, and given tea and cigarettes and began to write out my confession in the little exercise books they provided, according to the script Mr. Acne, the English-speaker, had been chanting at me for six days. I wrote that Sandy Mitchell and I were responsible for the bombing that killed Chris Rodway and that Sandy Mitchell, Raf and I were responsible for the second bombing. I would have written anything they wanted.

The beatings stopped at this point, but the sleep deprivation continued.

Having obtained for themselves a confession outlining the method of the crime, they began to torture me again on the eighth day.

They demanded that I admit to being a British spy. There was no need to torture me more. By then I was broken and would have told them anything. I do not know if this ongoing physical abuse was standard procedure or if they were simply enjoying themselves. The Midget took deranged delight in his work. Sometimes they all laughed as they beat me. It was the only time I knew they weren't acting.

By the ninth day, my feet were completely swollen. Standing for hours on end set my whole body on fire. Blood and plasma were seeping through the skin of my buttocks, where they had beaten me. I was purple and black from the middle of my back to the back of my knees. During the torture I begged again to confess to whatever they wanted. They sat me down with another exercise book and I wrote out another confession, this time to being a British spy, acting on government orders to embarrass the Saudi regime. The explanation they were giving the rest of the world -- that we were involved in a bootleggers' turf war over alcohol -- was never mentioned.

Despite my confessions, the cycle of torture and sleep deprivation continued for another day. Finally, we came to what I thought was the end of the physical abuse. I was transferred from the interrogation centre to al-Heil prison, about 60 kilometres from Riyadh. There, I was fingerprinted, photographed, given prison clothes and led to a 2x3- metre cell, provided with a mattress, blanket, pillow, and allowed to sleep for the first time in 11 days.

I was too exhausted and in too much physical agony to be able to think of anything. Certainly I had no thought of the future, for which I am thankful. My ordeal had not ended, it had only just begun.

Part two of a five-part series.; Tomorrow: A transfer to al-Heil prison, a ''farcical'' first meeting with Canadian embassy authorities and a heart attack.

 

Copyright © Watch 2001-2006.
Copyrights of quoted materials belong to their respective owners.

 

"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label."

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

"Losing the Enlightenment" (Victor Davis Hanson, OpinionJournal, 2006/11/29)

"Allah’s England?" (Daniel Johnson, Commentary. November 2006)

"'Sex in the Park': The latest doings of the Danish imams" (Henrik Bering, The Weekly Standard, 2006/11/18)

"Narcissism on Stilts" (Harold Evans, New York Sun, 2006/11/16)

"Terrorists are recruiting in our schools, says MI5 boss" (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/11/10)

› AOTW Archive



From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

"The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt" (Oriana Fallaci, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/03/13)

"How the West Was Won and How It Will Be Lost" (Oriana Fallaci, The American Enterprise, from the January/February 2003 issue)

"On Jew-hatred in Europe" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2002/04/13)

"Anger and Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2001/12/19)

Weekly archive

2006/12/04 - 2006/12/10
2006/11/27 - 2006/12/03
2006/11/20 - 2006/11/26
2006/11/13 - 2006/11/19
2006/11/06 - 2006/11/12
2006/10/30 - 2006/11/05

› From 2001/09/11 -



Monthly index

December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006

› From September 2001 -



Author index

› Ajami, Fouad - Johnson, Paul
› Kagan, Robert - Ye'or, Bat



Support Watch

Please feel free to donate if you enjoy the daily content and links Watch provides:

Contact Watch

Email:
watch-at-windsofchange.net