Saudi Babylon: Torture, Corruption and Cover-Up Inside the House of Saud

by Mark Hollingsworth, Sandy Mitchell

When Sandy Mitchell was arrested for his alleged involvement in two bombings in Saudi Arabia in December 2000, he thought it was a case of mistaken identity and that he would soon be released. Instead, he spent nearly three years in jail, where he was repeatedly tortured before being forced to sign a confession and admit his guilt on Saudi television.Throughout his incarceration the Saudi authorities knew that the attacks had been committed by al-Qaeda militants. Yet they kept Mitchell in jail and refused him access to a lawyer for a year. By this time he had been sentenced to death but he was eventually released before the penalty could be imposed. Saudi Babylon is the story of a shocking miscarriage of justice. But it also reveals an even more disturbing how the British government, mindful of multi-billion-pound arms sales to Saudi Arabia, virtually abandoned Mitchell by adopting a softly-softly diplomatic approach to the corrupt Saudi royal family. Based on diaries and records of meetings with ministers and officials, this is a powerful exposé of how the British government acts when one of its citizens is illegally imprisoned and tortured by a regime with which it does business.

Genres: Nonfiction

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2005

Reviews

[ZzZ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pure bollocks. Quite clearly an undercover MI6 flopagent who got caught, and then cried about “torture” and the UK government didn’t give a dogs bollocks about his assss 🥱

[N A · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very well written by someone who is not a professional writer and also knows the art of analyzing the situation and the social and political background behind his ordeal. A courageous man, indeed as well.

[N. G. Osborne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harrowing true life tale of getting caught in the Saudi justice system.