There is no truth to allegations that a Canadian citizen was tortured or deliberately mistreated in a Saudi jail and reports of his injuries have been exaggerated, a government official in Ottawa said on Tuesday, quoted by Reuters.
The official told Reuters that it was clear William Sampson's injuries had been suffered during an attempt to restrain the prisoner, who was shown on Saudi television earlier this year confessing to a fatal bombing in Riyadh.
Sampson was taken to hospital last week with injuries that some of his relatives said included a fractured vertebra and bad bruising on his arms and legs, which they alleged had been inflicted during a beating by his jailers.
But when a doctor and Canada's ambassador to Saudi Arabia visited Sampson in hospital on Monday, they filed a report back to Ottawa telling a different story.
The government official said that while he could not reveal what Sampson had told either the ambassador or the doctor, he had no reason to disbelieve the Saudi version of events.
"Sampson had extensive bruising on his body, he had one broken toe, he did not have any problems with his back. There is no crushed vertebra. He was up and walking around when the doctor was there," the official said.
"If you define torture as somebody being strapped down and somebody having a go at him, no, that is not what we are talking about here. There was a need for restraint, there was a very violent reaction to that attempt at restraint and that's where the injuries occurred as far as we can tell right now."
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley was quoted as saying Monday that Ottawa was actively investigating reports that Sampson might have been tortured in a Saudi Arabian prison.
"We have impressed on Saudi authorities, both here and in Riyadh, the need to respect international norms concerning the treatment of detainees...and will continue to do so," Manley was quoted as saying in a statement issued from his office in Ottawa, cited in a report by National Post Online.
Sampson, 43, being held without charge in connection with a fatal bombing in Saudi Arabia last year, was admitted to hospital May 17 with “suspicious” injuries, said the paper.
Saudi authorities told the family that Sampson's injuries resulted from a suicide attempt.
But Dr. Martin Mayfield, a physician and a Sampson family friend in Britain, does not believe it.
"I don't know how a man could do that to himself in a prison cell," Mayfield told the newspaper - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
