Saudi rights group says Iraq 'mistreats Saudi inmates'

Unnamed official at the National Society for Human Rights quoted as saying that Saudi Arabian prisoners in Iraq are 'treated differently from other Arab inmates for no reason other than they are Saudis'.

A Saudi rights group has accused Iraqi authorities of deliberately mistreating Saudi inmates, a Saudi newspaper reported yesterday.

Al-Watan quoted an unnamed official at the National Society for Human Rights as saying that Saudi Arabian prisoners in Iraq are "treated differently from other Arab inmates for no reason other than they are Saudis".

"Security and administrative" obstacles had been obstructing its representatives or the Red Cross from visiting some nearly 60 Saudi prisoners held in Iraq, it cited the source as saying.

An Iraqi justice ministry spokesman rejected the charges.

"These allegations are incorrect and baseless. We refuse them completely," the spokesman, Haider Al Saadi, said.

"We treat the Iraqi, Saudi and foreign prisoners according to the principles of human rights."

Thousands of Saudis travelled to Iraq to fight alongside Islamist insurgents after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Official rights group statistics show that less than 100 Saudis are held in Iraq, but the number is believed to be much higher and could reach hundreds.

Suhaila Zein Al Abidine Hammad, a founder of National Society for Human Rights, one of two rights groups licensed by the Saudi kingdom, said the organisation had been concerned mainly by a move to implement death sentences that had been issued against Saudi nationals held in Iraq.

One of the inmates had been taken to solitary confinement, she said, a sign that he was about to be executed.

Ms Hammad said some of those prisoners had received "arbitrary sentences" and that Saudi Arabia had been trying to bring them back homes so they can get fair trials.