A few kilometers after having crossed the Saudi-Yemeni border, Tawfiq Al Sabary's car was stopped by Saudi police. The police asked him to get out of the car and to show them his identity documents. His wife told Alkarama that Mr Al Sabary was then arrested without being shown any warrant. She was also not given any reason for the arrest her husband and return to Yemen directly.

Two days after Mr Al Sabary's arrest, his wife received a short call from her husband, informing her that he was being interrogated about a case that he was not involved in, and did not know the location of the place of his detention. He was then given another opportunity a few weeks later to call his family to inform them that he was now detained in Al Madina prison, without any proper judicial proceedings. No date had been set for a trial and he had not been granted the right to access a lawyer.

Mr Al Sabary's mental and physical integrity is at risk as torture is frequently used against detainees in Saudi Arabia, often with the aim to extract confessions from them. Alkarama has in fact submitted several cases to Special Rapporteur on Torture which have occurred in Saudi jails. The same concerns have also been raised by international NGO, and stressed by the Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in his statement of 6 January 2012 stating that "the use of torture as a means to obtain confessions appears to be rampant (in Saudi Arabia)".