Britons appeal to sue Saudi Arabia over jail torture

Ron Jones, an accountant, who says he was tortured into confessing to a terrorist bombing in Riyadh, and a group of other men fighting to clear their names, are challenging a ruling which blocked them bringing damages actions in this country.

In July last year a senior High Court official in London "struck out" Mr Jones’s claim against the Saudi government for more than 2 million, on the grounds of "state immunity".

Lawyers acting on their behalf went to the Court of Appeal yesterday to urge the Master of the Rolls, Lord Phillips, sitting with Lord Justice Mance and Lord Justice Neuberger, to overturn the ruling and restore their damages actions.

Mr Jones, originally from Hamilton, Lanarkshire and now living in Crawley, Sussex, was kept in a Saudi detention centre for 67 days in 2001.

Also being heard are appeals by another former detainee, Sandy Mitchell, from Glasgow, and others who all claim that they suffered torture in prison.

Mr Jones’s High Court writ, which cites the Saudi interior ministry and a ministry official, claims false imprisonment, torture and violations of his human rights.

Mr Jones, who was injured when a bomb planted in a dustbin exploded outside a bookshop in Riyadh, told afterwards how he was seized from his hospital bed, taken to a detention centre and tortured into confessing.

Mr Jones said his hands and feet were caned and beaten with a pickaxe handle, and he had been subjected to sleep deprivation and psychological duress. He went to the Saudi capital in November 2000 to work as a tax adviser for a Saudi-owned accountancy firm, just as a wave of anti-western bombings began to sweep the country.

Mr Mitchell has said of his alleged treatment: "The pain was excruciating to the point where dying was preferable to living.

"It was the fact that I was innocent, and my prayers and that the truth would get out that kept me going."

The Saudi government has denied that he and others were tortured into confessing to a bombing campaign in 2000, which killed a Briton, Christopher Rodway, and an American working in the country.

The Saudi Arabian government blamed a "turf war" connected to expatriate alcohol dealers, but the bombings are widely believed to have been the work of Islamic militants.

Mr Mitchell and two other former detainees, Les Walker, from the Wirral, and British-Canadian Bill Sampson, who lives in Penrith, want the go-ahead to sue two Saudi Arabian interrogators, as well as the deputy governor of the prison where they were held and the Saudi government minister of the interior, in the High Court for damages.

The hearing was adjourned until today.