January 31, 2002	Thursday	Ziqa’ad 16, 1422

LONDON, Jan 30: Saudi secret police tortured British suspects whilst seeking confessions to a bombing campaign against fellow westerners last year, according to testimony the Daily Guardian says it has obtained from three recently released men.

The paper says: “The men describe how they were subjected to a systematic programme of sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, threats and beatings at the hands of Saudi Arabia’s feared interior ministry police, in attempts to make them confess to bombings.”

The British Foreign Office on Tuesday issued a strongly worded statement saying it was “very concerned about these cases”. The three released Britons were among a group of westerners arrested during a series of explosions - starting in Nov 2000 - which killed a Briton and an American; and blinded or maimed several other expatriates.

They were eventually jailed on minor alcohol charges and given an amnesty last month.

A spokesman for the Saudi embassy in London rejected the allegations of torture.

Mazen al-Sheikh said: “We don’t use torture. It is anti- Islamic. The ambassador will be making a full statement in due course.”