'They will burn in hell for what they have done to me' [View All]

[emad]

By Alasdair Palmer
(Filed: 15/05/2005)

'I'm self-sufficient now. I earn enough to support my family and I'm not dependent on benefits." The pride in Sandy Mitchell's voice is unmistakable. Given what he has been through, it is also justified.


Five years ago, the tough Glaswegian was earning his living working in a hospital in Saudi Arabia as an anaesthetic technician, putt-ing in canulas, checking doses and weighing patients before they had operations. He and his Thai wife had just had a baby. He was happy and prosperous. Then, on December 17 2000, he was kidnapped by Saudi Arabian police as he got out of his car to walk into the hospital. Handcuffed and thrown into a police van, he was taken to an interrogation room in a prison in Riyadh. At that point, his nightmare began in earnest.

"Two men came into the room," he remembers. "They were Captain Ibrahim al-Dali, who introduced himself as an officer from Saudi Arabian intelligence, and Lieutenant Khalid al-Sabah, the interpreter. Ibrahim was short - hardly over 5ft 5in - but very strong. Khalid was tall and had rotting teeth. They told me I had to confess or they would do things to me that would make me go mad.

"I was totally confused. I had no idea of what I was supposed to confess to. I tried to ask them. Their response was to start hitting me with a pick-axe handle. They beat me all over my body. They brought in a huge 22 stone Saudi to sit on me while they beat the soles of my feet. They forced a metal rod between my knees and hoisted me upside-down, and beat me on my exposed buttocks. It was excruciating."

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