| http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2001/06/23/intern
ational0538EDT0454.DTL Saudi human rights monitor: Khobar indictments based on torture TAREK AL-ISSAWI, Associated Press Writer � Saturday, June 23, 2001 (06-23) 03:29 PDT (AP) -- With BC-Khobar Towers-What's Next, Bjt DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- The indictment of 13 Saudis and one Lebanese in the 1996 Khobar bombing is "worth nothing" because it is based on information obtained through torture, the director of a Saudi human rights group said. Ali Al-Ahmed, director of the Saudi Institute based in McLean, Va., said Saudi intelligence agents tortured four of the men indicted by a U.S. grand jury in the attack that killed 19 U.S. servicemen. "This indictment is tainted with blood, murder and torture," Al-Ahmed said in a telephone interview. "It's worth nothing." The four suspects remain in Saudi prisons, along with five others named in the indictment released Thursday in Alexandria, Va., Al-Ahmed said. Four others remain at large, he said. He asserted that two other Saudis -- whose names do not appear in the indictment -- were tortured to death during the Saudi investigation. Al-Ahmed did not mention the Lebanese. The U.S. government said only that "some" of the 14 defendants were in custody in various countries. Interior Ministry officials could not be reached for comment, but the kingdom long has denied accusations by international human rights groups of torturing inmates and says such claims are attacks on Islam intended to harm the country's image. A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh declined to comment on the Saudi Institute allegations, but referred a reporter to the 2000 State Department Human Rights Report on Saudi Arabia. "There were credible reports that the authorities abused detainees, both citizens and foreigners. Ministry of Interior officials are responsible for most incidents of abuse, including beatings and sleep deprivation. In addition, there were allegations of torture," the report said. American investigators were allowed to attend interrogation sessions in Saudi prisons but were refused requests to directly question those arrested or detained. Shortly before the indictments were announced, Al-Ahmed sent an e-mail to The Associated Press in Dubai naming 13 men he said his organization had determined were "continuously tortured daily for months by Saudi investigators in Riyadh and Dammam." Four were on the list of those indicted in connection with the Khobar Towers attack. All four, according to both the U.S. indictment and Al-Ahmed's statement, come from the same town in Saudi Arabia -- Qatif, just 12 miles northwest of Al-Khobar, site of the deadly bombing. The men were early recruits -- but not top leaders -- in the plot to kill Americans in Saudi Arabia, and played key roles in scouting Khobar Towers and other potential American targets as early as 1993, three years before the bombing, the U.S. indictment said. By 1988 and 1990, the four were members or associates of Saudi Hezbollah, the terror group blamed by the United States for the attack, the indictment said. Saudi Hezbollah was founded by members of the desert kingdom's Shiite Muslim minority who fled into exile in the 1980s to escape what they said was persecution of their economic underclass by the Sunni majority. Many of the exiles went to Iran, drawn by the success of their fellow Shiites' 1979 Islamic revolution that overthrew another monarchy. The U.S. indictment places heavy blame on Iran for nurturing Saudi Hezbollah but stops short of mentioning any Iranians by name or linking them directly to Khobar. The Saudi Institute list of those allegedly tortured by Saudi interrogators includes the following four Khobar suspects: * Mustafa al-Qassab, a 30-year-old businessman married to a Lebanese who was arrested in April 1997 and tortured daily for six months. * Sa'ed al-Bahar, a 34-year-old clergyman who was arrested in August 1996, tortured and kept in solitary confinement for two years. * Abdallah al-Jarash, a 35-year-old teacher who was arrested August 1996 and "tortured ... to confess responsibility to Khobar bombing." * Hussein al-Mughis, a civil servant who was arrested August 1996 and "tortured by hanging and electric shocks on his chest." Al-Bahar was among five defendants named in five conspiracy accounts but not charged with the actual bombing and killings. The three others are among nine defendants charged on all 46 counts, including murder, bombing resulting in death and conspiracy to commit murder of Americans and U.S. government employees. Al-Jarash and al-Mughis were among several defendants who often met or were recruited by Saudi Hezbollah at the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine on the outskirts of Damascus, the Syrian capital, according to the U.S. indictment. The shrine, refurbished at Iran's expense after the 1979 revolution, is a major Shiite pilgrimage site, often taking on an aura of both prayer and picnic. Shiite families from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other nations converge at the tomb of Zeinab, a granddaughter of Islam's Prophet Muhammad and sister of a revered Shiite saint, Imam Hussein. |
