William Sampson

William Sampson was held in Saudi Arabia under suspicion of being involved in a 2001 car bombing incident that authorities said was not terrorism but rather "rival bootlegging gangs" selling alcohol illegally to the lucrative foreign contractor market in that country (where alcohol is officially banned).

He signed a confession, and was "sentenced to public beheading", spending two years in prison awaiting this sentence to be carried out. He alleges frequent torture and deprivation during this period. He was released after diplomatic pressure was brought to bear by the UK and Canadian governments (Sampson is a citizen of both nations).

The case also became "an embarrassment for both the government in Riyadh, which says it is trying to modernize and make more transparent its legal system, and Ottawa, which is accused of failing to act aggressively enough to protect its citizen from a nation that Mr. Sampson's father described as 'a bunch of bloody savages.'"

In 2004, Mr. Sampson advanced his case in the UK courts to be permitted to sue the Saudi government over his torture and being forced to sign a confession. The case received little publicity until the Abu Ghraib incidents in Iraq were revealed in 2004, which put intense scrutiny on the use of torture by US and US-allied governments in Arabia.

SourceWatch Resources

 * Geneva Conventions
 * war crime