Report:

Saudi Arabia Tortured American Citizen

An American citizen was allegedly tortured while in custody in Saudi Arabia, according to a report by The New York Times.

News ID: 443731

Date: 04 March 2019 - 16:13

RNA - An American citizen was allegedly tortured while in custody in Saudi Arabia, according to a report by The New York Times.

Walid Fitaihi described being dragged from his room in Riyadh's Ritz Carlton hotel, where he was being detained, then told a friend he was "blindfolded, stripped of his underwear and bound to a chair", the report said.

The Harvard-trained doctor was then reportedly shocked with electricity in "what appears to have been a single session of torture that lasted about an hour", the daily added.

It also noted that he was whipped so severely, he could not sleep on his back for days.

Fitaihi, who holds dual American-Saudi citizenship, was one of several hundred prominent Saudis rounded up in mass arrests in November 2017 in an anti-corruption crackdown ordered by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS).

As with many others, the charges against Fitaihi have not been disclosed and there has been no known trial. He remains in detention.

A number of those who were caught up in the round-up also alleged torture, including electric shocks, charges the kingdom has denied.

Fitaihi's American citizenship could further complicate relations between Saudi Arabiaand the United States.

In December, the US Senate voted unanimously on a non-binding resolution that blamed the MbS for the brutal murder of prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Khashoggi was murdered in early October in the Riyadh consulate in Turkish city of Istanbul by a group of Saudi agents. US intelligence agencies reportedly believe MbS ordered the murder, an allegation the kingdom denies.

A group of US Senators introduced a legislation on Tuesday that would require the US Director of National Intelligence to submit a public report on the assassination.

Khashoggi had protested Fitaihi's detention in Saudi Arabia in a tweet in January 2018.

"What has happened to us?" Khashoggi wrote in Arabic, adding, "How can someone like Dr Walid Fitaihi be arrested and what are the justifications for it?"

The NYT report said Dr Fitaihi's American friends are "stepping up a campaign to press Washington to take up his case".

US President Donald Trump has defended MbS in the wake of the Khashoggi murder and continued relations with the kingdom.

On Tuesday, Senior White House Adviser and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner met MbS for the first time since Khashoggi's murder. It was not mentioned in the White House statement on Kushner's meeting.

Trump distanced himself from the Khashoggi murder in part, he stated, because the journalist was not a US citizen.

MbS has defended the 2017 anti-corruption campaign as "shock therapy" to overhaul the Saudi economy.

When the campaign ended in January, a royal court announced that authorities had summoned 381 people, some as witnesses, but it provided no names.

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