Briton freed from Saudi jail ‘was tortured’

A BRITISH man freed this week after being jailed in Saudi Arabia with six other westerners for organising bomb attacks has said he was tortured into confessing, it was reported yesterday.

Alexander 'Sandy' Mitchell, from Glasgow in Scotland, said he was so scarred by the experience he would probably never leave Britain again.

The 47-year-old said that the five Britons, a Canadian and a Belgian imprisoned for the bomb attacks which many suspected were in fact the work of Islamic extremists had faced unspecified torture.

"We were tortured that's why we had to make those confessions. We can prove we are innocent," he said.

Mitchell said that he had also been pressurised into making a public confession on television after being told by Saudi police that his wife and young son were being tortured.

Mitchell and British-born William Sampson faced execution for allegedly masterminding bomb attacks in 2000 and 2001 which left one Briton dead and two other Britons and an Irishwoman injured.

The other four Britons and the Belgian were given long jail sentences.

Saudi authorities said the bombings were part of a turf war between gangs of westerners involved in supplying illicit liquor to Saudi Arabia's expatriate community. But the men's families, lawyers and others argued they were scapegoats for attacks carried out by Islamic militants operating in Saudi Arabia. All seven were released after Saudi King Fahd granted them royal clemency.

Supporters of the jailed men said that the British government had been unnecessarily reticent over the issue so as not to upset the Saudi government.