Reading William Sampson’s Confessions of an Innocent Man: Torture and Survival in a Saudi Prison (McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, 2005) is an infuriating exercise. Arrested in 2000 as a face-saving measure by Saudi authorities who refused to admit Jihadi terrorists were at work in their kingdom, he was mercilessly abused and tortured until his release in 2003 (after al Qaeda’s presence could no longer be denied). His greatest contempt is not for his captors and torturers – hell, we know the Saudis are not far removed from their barbarian grandfathers – but is rightly aimed at our own Department of Foreign Affairs and their “hypocrisy, downright dishonesty, and treachery…” We pay our civil servants to protect our citizens, and we have no need to tolerate those who forget this.
