I angrily lunged toward my father

William Sampson, with Francine Dube
Original link: "I angrily lunged toward my father" (William Sampson with Francine Dubé, National Post, 2003/09/11)

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)

I angrily lunged toward my father

William Sampson, with Francine Dubé
National Post

The Conclusion: Sampson recounts his battle of wills with captors, and his first hours of freedom

Thursday, September 11, 2003


LONDON - In the beginning of March, 2002, I was told I would be moved from solitary confinement if I signed a statement saying that my treatment in prison had been good, and that I had not been abused. I lay limp and mute on my mattress on the floor, ignoring the prison officers and guards who came bearing the proposal like it was a gift.

I had begun what I call my "dirty protest" in August, 2001. When my captors took something from me as a form of punishment, I would refuse to take it back. It began with soap, shampoo, toothpaste and toothbrush. They took them away from me because I was refusing to wear the thobe -- the ankle-length white shirt provided by the prison. When they returned the toiletries, I wouldn't use them. They took away my boxer shorts and T-shirt from the laundry to try to force me to wear the thobe. I chose nakedness, knowing how much it would bother my captors to see a naked man standing there, defying them.

I refused to talk to the guards or accept the daily offer to walk outside for fresh air. When the guards required that I move from my cell to clean it, I refused to stand, forcing them to carry me. If they provoked me, I would spit at them. Sometimes I threw rotten food at them, and feces and urine that I collected in the cardboard juice containers that occasionally came with my meals.

I noticed that the pills they called vitamins had a profound narcotic effect on me. I began refusing to take them. My jailers threatened to withdraw all my medication, including the Aspirin I was given to help control my heart condition. To retaliate, I stopped taking all my pills.

On three occasions, I told Canadian officials that I had been tortured. In October, 2001, I told a Canadian psychiatrist that my alleged suicide attempt was no suicide attempt -- I had been beaten by my guards. In March, 2002, I told Stéphane Bergeron, a Bloc Québécois MP who had come to visit me: "Why should I co-operate with these bastards," pointing at my captors. "These are the bastards that tortured me, these are the bastards that caused my heart attack by torturing me." And in September, 2002, I asked Don Boudria, the government House leader: "What have you ever done to stop the torture?"

I had not wanted to tell them so previously -- I had felt then that co-operation was more likely to resolve things, an attitude that markedly changed over time. Nearly a year after my imprisonment, I had grown bolder. After my two heart surgeries, I realized that my Saudi captors were afraid that I might die during torture or under a severe beating. They had lost their most potent weapon against me.

I felt that the statements I made to Canadian officials about torture had fallen on deaf ears.

During one embassy visit, a Canadian official told me: "We are not interested that you are guilty, we are only interested that you get a fair trial." I did not trust the lawyer recommended to me by the Canadian embassy and refused to co-operate with him.

I thought the Canadian government believed I was guilty. I felt that embassy officials were not acting in my best interests and were more concerned with maintaining smooth relations with my captors and torturers.

I decided that I had had enough of them, that I truly was alone and I would fight alone, regardless of the consequences. From the beginning of December, 2001, I refused all co-operation with the Canadian embassy and refused all visits. In my mind, they had become as much a problem to me as were the Saudi Arabians.

Mr. Bergeron, the Bloc Québécois MP, visited me in March, 2002. I was carried bodily from my cell and taken to the Security Forces hospital, where I was shackled to the bed. I was visited by my torturers, Mr. Acne and the Midget, and told I would have a visit from somebody very important in Canada. I was to behave.

The hospital room had been spruced up. Carpet had been placed on the floor. Chairs had been brought into the room. I urinated on the carpet and threw my food around, to make it feel like home. The guard watched on helplessly, afraid of being urinated on.

Mr. Bergeron arrived in the company of a large group of Saudi Arabian officers from the Ministry of the Interior, along with a party from the Canadian embassy.

"I renounce my Canadian citizenship," I told him. It was not the first time I had said so. I wanted the Canadians to leave me alone. I am a dual national. I felt I would be better represented by the British embassy, and said so. I feel the British government has a greater understanding of these situations and of the realpolitik of dealing with dictatorships. But the Saudis never allowed me any contact with the British embassy.

Mr. Bergeron asked me why I wasn't co-operating, why I was being so difficult. I pointed to my torturers, who were standing to Mr. Bergeron's right. "These are the bastards who tortured me," I told him.

The room exploded. Mr. Acne and the Midget shouted at me and tried to end the meeting. After a brief discussion in the hallway, the group returned.

"Don't give up hope. Your friends are thinking of you," said Mr. Bergeron.

"I have no need of hope," I said. I was living on anger. There is an old Clash song with lyrics that perfectly suited my situation: "Let fury take the hour, let anger be your power."

Six months later, Mr. Boudria visited me, under similar circumstances. I told him to fuck off.

"You know I have been tortured," I said. This time, my statement was met with stony silence from the Canadians.

Because I had refused to co-operate with my lawyer, I had no information as to the disposition of my case. I did learn from Boudria that my case was being heard before a higher court. I knew that this was as much a farce as my previous trials. I considered it a necessity only for the Saudis, in order that they legitimize and sanctify killing me.

When I returned to my cell after the Boudria visit, I found that they had confiscated my mattress and drinking water.

The last visit, I was to receive from the outside world before my release took place in February, 2003. My father had returned to Saudi Arabia, against my wishes.

I was ushered into the hospital room without this time knowing who my visitor was to be. I was chained to the bed, as usual. When my father walked into the room, my heart sank and my blood boiled. I was furious with him for being so stupid as to visit me there. I had hoped that he would have gained some understanding that my refusals to co-operate were in part based on my need to keep him away from my captors.

"Get out!" I yelled.

My father refused to leave. I jumped off the bed, dragging the bed frame behind me by my shackles. I wanted to drive him from the room. If a descent into total ferocity was the only way to convince him to stay out of Saudi Arabia, I was about to deliver it.

My father had arrived in the company of the Canadian ambassador and my lawyer, senior officers from the prison, my interrogators and five or six prison guards. As I lunged from my bed, they all turned to flee. It was like a Tom and Jerry cartoon -- the doorway filled with people scrambling to get past each other.

I broke apart the bedstand and flung pieces at their retreating figures. One Saudi guard jumped between my father and me, protecting him. I would never have hurt my father, but he pushed him out of the room.

I broke off the bed rail, releasing my shackles. Now I was mobile and I had a two-and-a-half-foot-long steel rod. I decided to vent my fury on all the fixtures and fittings in the room. I figured it was the least I could do to increase the cost of my captivity.

I smashed a television, a closed-circuit-television monitor, a second nightstand, a chair, and was working on the remains of the bed when the door burst open and six or seven guards ran into the room, one with his hand on his gun.

I was physically restrained, handcuffed and shackled. My Saudi lawyer was ushered into the room. He spoke to me briefly.

"You are a filthy animal. You deserve what we have done to you," he said.

I knew that my decision not to co-operate with him had been correct.

Over the next weeks, the regime under which I was being held began to get easier. I was effectively left alone to my own devices. I had my books. I read. I meditated.

I came to understand why religious mystics used to go into caves for six months at a time. To survive in solitary confinement you have to learn to leave behind desire. Not just physical desire for sex -- desire for anything. It is liberating when you come to the point where you don't need things. Then you know that those who torment you cannot get inside your mind without using the most brutal of techniques. You end up having moments of almost profound serenity. But moments only. The bastards would always come into the prison cell to mess it up.

Finally, in March, 2003, a larger number of books than normal were brought to my cell, along with old copies of The Economist and Wired, and for the first time, a current newspaper -- The Arab News, a local English language paper. It was highly censored, but at least it was current.

I was also provided with paper, pencils and a calculator, which had a time function. For the first time in more than two years, I could track time and the date with certainty.

I concluded that my captors were improving conditions for me to soften any claims I might make against them, should I again be visited in prison by foreign authorities. But I still believed that I was sentenced to death and would never see my friends and family again.

I felt no sadness at that, for I felt I had lived what I considered to be a full life and I've always known that I won't get out of life alive. I did feel some regret at the trouble that I had caused my friends, and in particular, the trouble and pain that I would have caused my father. Although we both have strong characters and at times are like two pit bulls fighting for dominance, we are close.

Things continued in this more relaxed fashion for several months.

Then on Thursday, Aug. 7 -- two years, seven months, three weeks and two days after my arrest -- as I was preparing to go to sleep, a senior sergeant of the guards walked into my cell alone.

That in itself was surprising enough -- by now, the guards were afraid of me, and never came into my cell alone. What happened next was even more surprising. My friend Sandy Mitchell, who had been arrested the same day I had been, and whom I hadn't seen in over two years, was ushered into my cell.

"Hello Dinky, what are you doing here then?" I said. It felt so good to see him, to know he wasn't dead.

"Get dressed, we're going home," he replied.

For the first time in two years, I showered. It was amazingly refreshing. A thick, grey scum collected in the drainage panel of the shower -- two years of grime, washing away. It was as if I was a snake that had shed more than one skin.

Sandy Mitchell and I were transported to the airport in a prison van. I had been two years without civilized conversation. Words flew out of me like bullets from a machine gun. We talked about what had been done to us by our Saudi Arabian captors.

Sandy had had more contact with his lawyer, whom he felt was fighting properly for his case. He gave me a rundown of what had been going on with our case. Although it had been hinted to me that I was to be executed, and I had fully expected to be killed, that ride with Sandy is when I found out that I had, in fact, been sentenced to death.

When the van doors opened at the airport in Riyadh, I stepped freely into the world for the first time in two years. We were ushered into a VIP lounge, where I met the other five Westerners who had been arrested in connection with the car bombings. I was told that my friend Raf Schyvens, from Belgium, had been flown out earlier.

As only the British can do, we began making sarcastic fun of each other, with a grim, gallows humour.

"It's about time you lost some bloody weight," I said to James Cottle, who had lost about 80 pounds. I myself had lost about 75 pounds. I now weighed 136 pounds, at 5'9". I had long hair and had grown a long, bushy beard. I looked like an ageing member from the cast of Jesus Christ Superstar.

During the flight to Heathrow, I still couldn't believe that I was on my way home. I wouldn't believe it until I felt my feet touch the tarmac in Britain. I was unable to sleep. I was exhilarated, bouncing off the walls with pent-up energy. My conversation was staccato. I spent the flight talking with members of the RAF medical support team, who had come to take us home. I cannot now recall a single word of any conversation I had on that aircraft, other than the agreement I made with the other prisoners that none of us would meet with the press. We wanted to meet our families and relax.

When we touched down at Heathrow, we walked down a staircase into a waiting bus. I couldn't stop smiling. "We beat the bastards," I thought. The "we" included friends and family on the outside who had helped us, their supporters, and the British government. It did not include Canadian officials.

We were taken to a VIP building. When I saw my father and my step-mother, Nelia, I felt tense and nervous. My anger at his visiting Saudi Arabia had not completely subsided. I knew that I had to put that aside, and that given the sometimes stormy nature of our relationship, that it might be difficult.

I took Nelia in my arms. "I'm free. It's over. Don't worry any more," I said.

I talked to my father about his health; we exchanged news of friends. I told him I needed to spend some time alone over the next few days. I felt that plunging back into my family was more emotion than I could handle right then. I had to come down off my high before I would be fit company.

I checked into a hotel, courtesy of the Canadian government. My first night, I couldn't bring myself to leave the hotel room. I had become cagebound. I asked the Canadian psychiatrist who had visited me in prison, who was among those who flew with us from Riyadh to Heathrow, if he would accompany me over the next few days and keep an eye on me. He agreed.

The first night I spent in the bathtub, just soaking in hot water. It was delicious, absolutely bloody delicious. I watched my first film, somewhat of a mistake as I chose The Recruit, which features a torture scene. I was transfixed, but oddly clinical about it. I could not watch such a film now. Then, for some reason, it was almost cathartic. I still don't understand that.

The next day I began the process of reclaiming my life. I went into London with the psychiatrist, walked down Oxford Street, went to Knightsbridge, went into Harrod's and stood in the food hall, to inhale the smells of all the different foods I had not smelled in two years. I've always had a keen sense of smell. I've always been something of an epicure. I just wanted to drink in the atmosphere.

I walked through old haunts of Southwest London -- Kensington and Chelsea -- places I had known as a college student, 20 years before. I thought how beautiful the world is. After my long confinement, it was fascinating to see people living freely, dressing as they pleased, doing what they pleased. I love the smell of women's perfume, and the sounds of their voices. It was lovely to experience that again.

I had a couple of pints of beer and we returned to our hotel, and I was exhausted but much more relaxed. I knew that I would recover from this. I also knew it would take me a long time. I knew at the end of that day that they had not destroyed me.

Since that time, I've had to undergo extensive medical checks. One of my stents from the angioplasty has become blocked. I will likely require further heart surgery. I had skin infections, surprising in their mildness, considering my dirty protest.

I've suffered minor damage to my left eardrum, which burst during a beating, but it has healed without severe hearing impairment. I have three broken teeth in the back of my mouth, some gum disease, and several cavities. My feet, ankles, lower back and hips always ache. While I am capable of walking great distances, it is always painful.

Emotionally, I know that I am more fragile. Tears come at unexpected times and in unexpected places. Anger surges through me at inappropriate moments. I am seeking counselling.

I don't at the moment have any plans. In the short term, my time is filled primarily with medical concerns. As to the future, I have no idea what it holds for me. I really haven't got a bloody clue.

I know that what has happened has changed me. Whether it is for the better, time will tell. I know that in some ways I am calmer and more philosophical. I am more patient, less bothered by the minutiae of life and the triviality of many everyday concerns.

My incarceration and near-death have made me view the rest of my life as something extra, as something not to be wasted. What I now see as achievement, what I now see as useful, has been markedly changed. I look at the desperate manner in which people try to climb on top of each other and realize what a waste it is. I have no wish to move back into that way of life.

I already have the three single most important things in the world: freedom, family and loyal friends. The rest is ephemeral.

 

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