Food deprivation, electric shock, walking on all fours, kissing the interrogator’s feet and some other methods are some of the methods of torture in Saudi prisons that have recently been revealed.
A former Saudi official once held captive by the regime has described his horrific methods of torture in prison.
The Washington Post reported that Salem al-Mazini, a former Saudi official, wrote in a complaint filed in a Canadian court that he had been repeatedly beaten in the soles of his feet and back.
Beating with whips and iron rods, deprivation of food and electric shock were some of the other methods of torture against al-Mazini. He also explained that prison officials had forced him to walk on all fours and make dog noises.
The former Saudi official attached horrific images of torture and beatings to his body, and wrote that he was tortured by agents of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Al-Mazini was arrested by UAE security officials on September 26, 2017 and extradited to Saudi Arabia, as described in court documents.
The Washington Post reported that the former Saudi official disappeared on August 24, 2020, after meeting with a senior Saudi security official and has not been seen since.
The Washington Post writes that his description of how prison officials treated him in two Saudi prisons, as well as at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh, shows the level of violence that Saudi Arabia, under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is willing to use to punish its alleged enemies.
His account was filed in a June lawsuit in Ontario, Canada. He sent the remarks via text message to his wife’s cell phone in September 2019, asking her to publish them if he disappeared again.
He writes in one of his biographies: “Days passed and I was terrified to hear the keys and the door open. I did not know what was going to happen to me; “They are going to torture me or kill me.”
He explains how one of the interrogators asked him to kiss his shoe and then kicked him in the head with the shoe. Al-Mazini writes somewhere about the “Saudi Public Investigation Bureau” or the regime’s secret police: “The sad irony is that I did not help any organization more than the Saudi Public Investigation Bureau, but now I myself have been captured and subjected to torture.”
The Washington Post writes that the level of psychological torture and the efforts of prison officials to dehumanize al-Mazini are as horrific as the physical torture inflicted on him. At one point, the interrogator told Al-Mazini to pick up a box and select the appropriate whip for his next beating.
When al-Mazini hesitated to choose the lashes, the interrogator chose one of the lashes and beat him. Al-Mazini was told not to say his name and to use the number 9 instead. Prison officials once spilled his food on the floor and asked him to eat it like a dog.
Al-Mazini writes: “Fear pervaded my whole being. I was worried about my mother, my wife, my children, my sisters, my uncle, my companies, my employees, my future, my body aches, those humiliations and fears. In fact, it can not be described by feeling. All I can say is that injustice and oppression of humanity were at their peak. I felt helpless.”
Washington Post The Saudi and UAE embassies in Washington declined to comment after the report was leaked.
Al-Mazini was a graduate of the Saudi Police Academy. He joined the Saudi Interior Ministry and oversaw the projects of Mohammed Ben Nayef, who was in charge of the ministry’s counterterrorism projects at the time. Ben Nayef later became interior minister and later crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
Al-Mazini’s narration states that when Muhammad bin Nayef decided to establish a private company called Alfa Star Aviation Services, he asked him to take over the chairmanship of that company. Ben Nayef later founded another private company, Sky Prime, and asked al-Mazini to run it in Dubai.
Lawyers for Saad al-Jabri, a former Saudi intelligence official, wrote in legal documents that the airlines were originally set up to cover up covert US and Saudi intelligence operations against terrorist groups, the Washington Post reported.
Based on questions asked by interrogators to al-Mazini, it appears that the main alleged crime by Saudi officials was aiding and abetting a conspiracy to steal money from the two airlines. Al-Mazini said he denied the allegations throughout the torture sessions.
Al-Jabri has also denied any misuse of funds. Companies controlled by the Saudi government have prosecuted al-Jabri at his residence in Canada and are demanding the return of money they say he stole.
Mohammed bin Salman, a rival of Mohammed bin Nayef, has been prosecuting al-Jabri since 2017, when he ousted bin Nayef as crown prince. Al-Jabri fled Saudi Arabia in 2017, and Mohammed bin Busalman is trying to bring him back to the country.
Al-Mazini’s wife describes one of the most horrific moments her husband described: “He once said that after being beaten a hundred times incessantly, he was told that this was from Saad al-Jabri and that it was a punishment to marry his daughter.”
Interrogators sometimes told Al-Mazini during the beating that the extra lashes and beatings he received were because his father-in-law was not here and that they should hand over his share to his son-in-law.
The behaviors described against al-Mazini are just one example of Muhammad ibn Salman’s behavior with the al-Jabri family. In 2017, the Saudi Crown Prince banned two al-Jabri children, Omar and Sara, who were teenagers at the time, from leaving.
The Washington Post wrote that Muhammad bin Salman had taken Omar and Sarah hostage to force his father to return to the country. Omar and Sara are now in prison. These actions coincided with Bin Salman’s attempt to settle internal accounts to consolidate power.
In 2018, when Saudi critic Jamal Khashgechi was assassinated and dismembered in Istanbul, al-Mazini told his wife that one of his interrogators was Maher Motarab. Maher Motarab was the leader of the team that killed Jamal Khashgechi inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey and dismembered his body.