bout de papier, Vol. 22, No. 1 (2006) — Spring 2006 // Printemps 2006, pp. 20–23
CONFESSIONS OF AN INNOCENT
MAN: TORTURE AND SURVIVAL IN
A SAUDI PRISON, by William Sampson,
McClelland & Stewart Ltd, 2005, 432 pp,
$22.99.
This is a story of torture. And it is not torture “lite” as one of the contemporary faddish terms would have it in attempting to provide moral and political justification for such acts. It is not a book for the squeamish or for those who like their torture in the detached language of the reports of human rights organizations.
The publication of the book rounds out a year in which Canadians have been inundated with first and second-hand accounts of torture in the prisons of Syria and Iran.
The accounts concerning Maher Arar, Ahmad Abou-El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Zahra Kazami preoccupied and troubled Canadians and their government, raising large issues of the relationship of the state to its citizens and the state’s protective responsibilities beyond its borders. Never before have Canadians seen, in such abundance, the ugly details that hide behind the word of torture and its close companions of abuse and intimidation. Heretofore, torture was something that happened to others, Canadians were somehow exempt from such inhuman behaviour.
Mr. Sampson’s well-written account provides an almost day-by-day account of the 965 days (the book reports 963 days) between December 17, 2000 and August 8, 2003 he spent in a Saudi prison. The book is remarkable in its recall of the detail associated with each blow, and there were many, the techniques of torture and the other numerous degrading (rape) acts. Mr. Sampson displays clinical detachment as he recreates the effect of the brutality on him and the emergence of his unique means of coping with his torturers and his expectation that eventually he would be executed.
Mr. Sampson was like many of the millions who flock to Saudi Arabia for the “easy” money. He had been “unemployed after a failed business venture” and the work in Saudi Arabia “sounded interesting … was reasonably well paid, with accommodation, car, holiday allowances, and comprehensive medical coverage.” Shortly after arriving he was “eating pizza and drinking home-brewed beer” and learning that there was a “ban on alcohol” which he was “breaking as this information was imparted” to him.
He reports that the Saudi authorities “had been turning a blind eye to a lot of the activities of the western expatriate community” and an “active social scene had developed.” Mr. Sampson was “amused” to encounter “more alcoholics in Saudi Arabia, among both the local population and the expatriates, than anywhere else” he had lived. It was a “fact of life” and on more than one occasion, he found himself “in an elevator surrounded by a miasma of alcohol.” He notes that he became a “regular” at the Coffee Pot bar and was “invited” to the other bars on the circuit.
Expatriates are a unique lot and nowhere more so than those in Saudi Arabia. According to the Saudi government (2004) there were 8.8 million foreign workers in Saudi Arabia, about a third of the population, probably making up more than half of the workforce. Most are from south and southeast Asia (approximately 3 million are from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Sri Lanka) but there are significant numbers from the United States and the United Kingdom. It is estimated there are six or seven thousand Canadians, many working in the health services sector.
Saudi Arabia as the Millennium approached was a troubled place. And as expatriates continued to enjoy the good life, Mr. Sampson notes there were troubling signs that while the presence of expatriates was tolerated “(at least on the surface) by the educated and affluent of Saudi society, it was actively resented in other quarters.” The tightly controlled local media said little about the increasing numbers of Saudis who were dissatisfied with their lot and were looking for answers even beyond their own radical school of Islam. Whabbism in its austerity describes both the religion and the land.
By the time Mr. Sampson arrived in Riyadh in mid-1998, Osama bin Laden had been forced out of his refuge in the Sudan and was making common cause with the Taliban in Afghanistan. There is some information that Mr. bin Laden sought to return to Saudi Arabia during this period even though he had been stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994. The Saudi leadership, especially those at the top, realized that his distance from Mecca was their best defence against the influence of Osama bin Laden on many of their subjects. Bin Laden’s involvement in the bombings of the American embassies in Dar-es-Salaam and Nairobi and other nefarious deeds brought home to the leadership that their fingers could be the first to burn should they play with Osama bin Laden’s fire.
Up to this point there were only a few violent manifestations of anti-American or anti-Western feelings in Saudi Arabia. In 1995 (November 13, car bombing) and 1996 (June 25), two American military installations were bombed killing 24 Americans. In the 1996 truck bombing of the Khobar Towers, 19 American military personnel were killed and hundreds were wounded. At the time, the American State Department attributed the bombings to the Saudi wing of Hezbollah, an Iranian-Syrian supported group in southern Lebanon.
The November 17 and 22, 2000 bombings of vehicles carrying British expatriates were small scale and amateurish in comparison to the earlier bombings and those that were to come in 2003 and 2004. The first bomb killed Christopher Rodway and seriously wounded his wife, Jean. The second injured four Britons, all friends of Mr. Sampson. There is no confirmed information on the type of bombs (Saudi CSI standards have not reached those used on television) but it would appear they were either timed or remotely-controlled devices.
By this time, Mr. Sampson had come to the attention of the Saudi authorities. The first instance was with police raids in April on two bars run by another expatriate, Gary O’Nions. Mr. O’Nions and several others were detained. Sandy Mitchell, a close friend of Mr. Sampson, informed Mr. Sampson of the detentions. Mr. Mitchell “had long acted as an unofficial prison visitor helping expats who fell foul of the law” and on a number of occasions he “had managed to affect [sic] the release of those arrested.” Mr. Sampson notes that Mr. Mitchell had called him because he had “recently begun to help him in these matters.”
Probably this would have been of little consequence, except later Mr. Samson, in cooperation with Sandy Mitchell and others, smuggled Mr. O’Nions to Dammam in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, from where he was smuggled across the border to Dubai. Mr. O’Nions was arrested before he was able to leave Dubai and subsequently returned to Saudi Arabia where no doubt his means of leaving Saudi Arabia were soon known to the authorities In the meantime in early October 2000, Mr. Sampson and several friends were arrested by the Saudi authorities on liquor-related charges. After three days, Mr. Sampson was released following intervention by the Canadian embassy and others.
The November explosions first led to the detention, on December 10, of Raf Schyvens, a Belgian national and close friend of Mr. Sampson and Sandy Mitchell. Mr. Schyvens was in a following vehicle at the time of the November 22 bombing and provided medical attention to the wounded. He was questioned by the Saudi authorities on two occasions prior to his arrest on December 10, at which time he disappeared from view. A week later, on December 17, 2000, Mr. Sampson and Mr. Mitchell were detained and began their 965-days experience of the “theory and practice of hell.” Oddly, Mr. Schyvens, following his release on August 7, 2003 and return to Belgium, stated that he had not been tortured by the Saudi authorities.
Mr. Sampson has no doubts as to who was responsible for the explosions. bout de papier Vol.
Throughout his account he offers rebuttal information to disprove the Saudi accusations against him and Mr. Mitchell. It is his view the Saudi authorities themselves planned and carried out the November bombings. This view is augmented by what Mr. Sampson regards as occasional unusual comments and actions by his Saudi tormentors.
Others are not so sure. There have been suggestions these explosions were the work of Saudi extremists intent on making life miserable and uncertain for the expatriate community; others have suggested dissidents from the Eastern Province supported by Iran were responsible, to create problems for the Saudi authorities; still others have suggested that the bombings were carried out by dissident members of Saudi police or security organizations; and another suggests that the bombings were the work of the British security organization MI6 in collaboration with the Israeli security organization MOSSAD. (See http://cryptome.org/mi6-bombings. htm). (Interestingly, Mr. Sampson writes that the Saudis during his torture and interrogation had him confess to being a British agent in Saudi Arabia.)
There were bombings similar to those of November after the detention of Mr. Sampson and his friends and in these instances the Saudi authorities also tried to place the blame on expatriates. In the March 2001 bombing (again either a timed or remote controlled device) near a downtown bookstore, another Canadian was detained along with a Briton and an American. They were in the neighbourhood at the time of the explosion. In these cases, relentless pressure by the Canadian and British governments, which did not differ markedly from the pressure in support of Mr. Sampson and others, saw the men released without being charged after some 60 or so days. These men were tortured in much the same manner as Mr. Sampson. It was through the cooperation of one of them that a detailed account of the torture was assembled and presented to the Saudi Crown Prince in early September 2001 by a special envoy of the Canadian Prime Minister in the hope that it would be of help to Mr. Sampson.
Mr. Sampson is highly critical of the government of Canada and its officials. He was so during his detention and his criticisms have continued since his release. It is understandable that 965 days in intolerable conditions would lead to questions about the government’s commitment and the quality of assistance. However, at times, there seemed to be a deeper resentment to Mr. Sampson’s antipathy towards the Canadian government and its officials. Prior to his work in Saudi Arabia, he spent most of the previous 20 years in the United Kingdom, where he also has citizenship as a result of his father’s birth there. In prison he tried to renounce his Canadian citizenship but was thwarted by the Saudis who insisted that since he arrived in their country using a Canadian passport he could only leave using one. He maintains that Canadian officials “told me to my face on more than one occasion that I was guilty.”
Indicative of Mr. Sampson’s state of mind towards Canada are his actions on the day he was to be released. Sandy Mitchell met with Mr. Sampson and told him
The Embassy says you are to have a shower and get dressed”.
Which embassy?” I asked.
The British Embassy was his reply. “That is an order I can accept.”
Nelson would be proud.
Earlier in the book Mr. Sampson relates his efforts to convey private thoughts to his father using references to P. G. Wodehouse, James Joyce and Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If.” Mr. Sampson goes on to report that officials in Ottawa had to ask his father for the “import” of Kipling’s poem. He writes his father cast “aspersions on their education” and providing “a none too brief sarcastic and pointed synopsis of the works of Rudyard Kipling.” Like so much in Mr. Sampson’s incomplete understanding of the actions of Canadian officials on his behalf he got this episode wrong as he did on coveral ather matters
At that time, I would accept such a request (to leave the prison] from British officials, but not from the Canadians, given their behaviour and crass stupidity. If I knew then what I know now of the British government’s actions in our case, I would not have acceded to their request either.
After Mr. Sampson’s release, a detailed account of the actions of Canadian officials was prepared and released. Jeffrey Simpson, writing in the Globe and Mail on December 2, 2003, reported that Mr. Sampson alleged that the Canadian government did not work hard enough for his release, accepted his guilt and was leery of not impairing Canada’s relationship with Saudi Arabia. Mr. Simpson goes on to say that these allegations were accepted at face value by the Canadian media. However, in Mr. Simpson’s view there is another side to the story: He wrote:
A letter drafted in Foreign Affairs and leaked to the Globe and Mail, but intended for Mr. Sampson, outlined an impressive series of attempts by the government to help Mr. Sampson. He refused many of the attempts for reasons he knows best, the most plausible being that he had convinced himself that the Canadian government was working against his release.
The record collected by Foreign Affairs shows that Prime Minister Jean Chrétien sent two special envoys to Saudi Arabia to press the Sampson case. In addition, four other senior government officials raised the Sampson cause with the Saudis. The Canadian ambassador in Riyadh repeatedly intervened on the file. Canadian officials met Mr. Sampson 25 times in prison; he refused to see them on 24 other occasions. A Canadian-appointed doctor examined Mr. Sampson once; he refused to see Canadian-appointed doctors
on two other occasions. Three times, the government paid for a Canadian psychiatrist to visit Mr. Sampson. The government offered to find him a Saudi lawyer. Mr. Sampson alleges government officials accepted his guilt. They deny it.
The record compiled by Foreign Affairs undoubtedly puts the government in the best possible light. But even a skeptic must concede that the record amounts to a defensible, bordering on conclusive, case that the Canadian government did a lot to assist Mr. Sampson. He doesn’t think the government did enough, and obviously became so convinced while in prison.
Mr. Simpson goes on to write that even Mr. Sampson’s assertion that the British were more aggressive in defending the interests of their incarcerated nationals “rings hollow.” In his view the record demonstrates that “even if the British were more aggressive, a matter of judgment, they were not more successful in securing the earlier release of their nationals. He concludes that Mr. Sampson had a “horrifying experience” but it is not clear from his allegations or from the government’s “detailed defence,” what “else could reasonably have been done to secure an earlier pardon.”
Mr. Sampson, hopefully, will continue to learn and arrive at a more complete understanding of the work done for his release. He may also come to understand that not all of the work that was done by his more ardent supporters aided in that effort.
Throughout his account, Mr. Sampson is critical of various governments (Canadian, British, Belgian and American) in their relations with the government of Saudi Arabia. “It would appear that appeasement of the Al Sauds is one of the highest political priorities in Canada, as well as in Britain and Belgium” and “IT]here was no government any more supportive of the Al Saud regime than the British government” and “INJo longer would it be just my word against that of the lying bastards of the Saudi Arabian government and their counterparts in the governments of Britain, Canada, and Belgium.”
All governments make Faustian compromises as they deal with the complex international environment. These compromises are apparent in balancing the supply-demand equation for petroleum. Saudi Arabia has been one of those compromises for several decades but Mr. Sampson is wrong to suggest that it is absolute or permanent.
A new, unopened Saudi embassy building in Ottawa stands in stark testimony to the impact Mr. Sampson’s situation had on Canada’s relations with Saudi Arabia.
Nor should it be said that such Faustian compromises are solely the sphere of governments. Mr. Sampson and millions like him who go to Saudi Arabia and sell their expert services are the foot soldiers ensuring the survival of the Saudi regime. Canadians, as much as any, are quite supportive of such compromises. The support of many Canadians for the relationship with the regime of President Fidel Castro, based on a starry-eyed understanding of his social welfare policies (perhaps his medicare system works better than ours) and his tweaking of the Americans nose, would make Faust blush.
Throughout his narrative, Mr. Sampson details his large and small rebellions against his torturers and these give the book its great and lasting value. It is a tale of endurance, survival and personal heroism. His verbal and physical attacks on his captors, his “dirt” and hunger strikes, his lashing out against those who sought to help, and his no concessions to the very end (he refused to be moved into the company of other prisoners) places his book well above what is normally associated with the “Black Hole of Calcutta” genre.
In some ways Confessions of an Innocent Man is reminiscent of the experiences of Commander James Stockdale who spent some 2714 days as a prisoner at the Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam War. Jonathan Mahler, writing in the New York Times Magazine on January 1, 2006 (to commemorate Cmdr. Stockdale’s passing in 2005), had the following to say:
Stockdale gradually came to see heroism not as a matter of consistent good judgment but as a single act, or series of acts, performed in a particular context. And he came to see heroes not as people who had carried out their duty with distinction but as individuals who had, like himself, done something no reasonable person would ever have felt justified asking them to do.
Stockdale called his actions “the rising of the few” and, ironically, his treatment at the hands of the American political system (he was Ross Perot’s running mate in the 1992 presidential election) was more devastating than his seven and a half years in a Vietnamese prison. Those amongst us who believe the money is easy in places like Saudi Arabia should read Mr. Sampson’s accounting.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 22, No. 1 (2006) — Spring 2006 // Printemps 2006, pp. 20–23. Read the rest of this issue →
