Briton hates ‘savages’

LONDON — For nearly three years, Sandy Mitchell was held in a Saudi Arabian jail and tortured until he confessed to a bombing he did not commit. He says he has only hatred for “the savages” who put him through it.

“I’m self-sufficient now. I earn enough to support my family, and I’m not dependent on benefits.” The pride in Mr. 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 anesthetic technician, inserting catheters, checking doses and weighing patients before they had operations. He and his Thai wife had just had a baby. He was happy and prosperous.

The nightmare begins

Then, on Dec. 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 at a prison in Riyadh. At that point, his nightmare began in earnest.

“Two men came into the room,” he remembers. “They were Capt. Ibrahim al-Dali, who introduced himself as an officer from Saudi Arabian intelligence, and Lt. Khalid al-Sabah, the interpreter. Ibrahim was short — hardly over 5 feet, 5 inches, 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 pickax handle. They beat me all over my body. They brought in a huge 300-pound 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.”

False confession sought

Mr. Mitchell’s two torturers eventually told him they wanted him to confess to planting a bomb that had killed another Briton, Christopher Rodway. “They said my wife and son were involved too. It sounded like a joke: My son was a year old.” The two interrogators were in deadly earnest. “They kept on hitting me. The only time they broke off was when they went to pray.”

That night, covered in blood and bruises, Mr. Mitchell was chained standing up to a steel door in a room 5 feet by 8 feet. Bright lights burned in his face throughout the night. The moment he looked as though he had fallen asleep, a guard came in and prodded him or hit with a stick to wake him up. And next day, Capt. Ibrahim and Lt. Khalid were there again, ready with their pickax handles.

After three days of torture, the intelligence officers summoned a doctor to examine Mr. Mitchell. The doctor took his blood pressure. It was dangerously high. “Try to relax more,” the doctor suggested helpfully to Mr. Mitchell. When Mr. Mitchell protested that he was being tortured, the doctor calmly replied: “They all say that. You’ll just have to cope the best you can.”

And the moment the doctor left, the torture began again.

Wife, baby threatened

Capt. Ibrahim then told him that they were going to arrest his wife and son. “We will torture them. When you hear their screams, you will know that they are suffering because you haven’t told us the truth.”

That threat was enough to break Mr. Mitchell. “I was starting to hallucinate because of the sleep deprivation. But I knew I couldn’t let them harm my wife and child. I would have done anything to avoid that. I was very frightened for my son and for my wife. Ibrahim said that because she wasn’t British, it was even easier for them to make her disappear.”

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