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Peter
Goldsmith and his wife had an incident with
Saudi police.
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The
First Arrest
Bill Sampson's arrest on December 16 2000 wasn't
the first encounter he had had with the Saudi police.
Two months earlier he was present when British couple,
Peter and Annie Goldsmith, were arrested. The Muttawa,
a vigilante police force - accountable to no authority
but God - found some alcohol in their villa. It
was a large amount but Peter Goldsmith claims it
was for their own personal use, "100 Litres
sounds a lot but when you've got 30 - 40 people
who can turn up, it doesn't last long."
Sampson
was released a few days later, but the Goldsmiths
were kept in custody for six weeks. During that
period, Bull Sampson became their lifeline. "Bill
brought me some clothes, bottled water and provided
me with some money...he was phoning various people
to try and get the situation resolved."
The
Escape Caper
He also played Good Samaritan to Gary O'Nions who
ran a number of lively illegal establishments like
the Empire Club. The parties at the Empire were
legendary until the fun ended in May 2000. Mary
O'Nions remembered the day the religious police
arrived. "They just came in droves. It looked
like a band of Osama Bin Laden. They knocked his
teeth loose, they fractured his ribs. He was actually
terrified they were going to kill him."
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Gary
O'Nions confessed and is serving eight years
in a Saudi jail.
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Gary
O'Nions cut a deal and confessed to crimes he didn't
commit. When he decided to escape the country he turned
to his friends Sandy Mitchell, the other man sentenced
with beheading, and Bill Sampson for help. Sampson
drove him as far as Daharan where O'Nions waited until
he could cross the desert to Dubai. But O'Nions was
arrested and sent back to Saudi Arabia where he's
now serving eight years.
Mary
O'Nions wonders, "The only two people in all
this who've been sentenced to death have been the
two people that have helped Gary to escape."
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Raaf
Schyvens was advised by diplomats to stick
to his story.
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Confessions
through Torture
Most Westerners believe the men were tortured into
making their confession on Saudi TV. Even their
conservative Saudi lawyers have filed an appeal,
"We have stated in our appeal that they were
subject to torture. In an extensive way."
Read
more about punishment in Saudi prisons.
Sampson
and Mitchell have since repudiated their confessions
- but not the Belgian paramedic sentenced to eight
years. His confessions hangs like a death warrant
over his friends.
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Saudi
lawyers have filed an appeal for Bill Sampson.
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The
Private War
In the spring of 2001, Bill Sampson declared a private
war on his captors. Isolated in his jail cell he has
refused to see visitors. Saudi officials complain
that he has become abusive, insulting the guards and
cursing the Prophet, Mohammed. He's also been hospitalized
with various injuries like a chipped vertebra, a damaged
foot and abrasions. His lawyer states that, "Most
of his problems result from his attitude and his stubbornness
and sometimes his rudeness in dealing with the people
he is with in the jail."
But to his relatives the reports of his obnoxious
behaviour are encouraging. "I feel that if Bill
was more compliant towards his captors, he would feel
as if he'd conceded his guilt...if he's innocent he's
not going to be something he isn't to better his predicament",
says James Sampson.
James Sampson hasn't seen his son for a year and a
half. During the last visit he was told not to bother
coming back. "He said, I don't want to see you
here again. He said, I'm going to be executed so there's
no point."
More...an
alternate theory
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