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Home » Press Releases » KSA - News » Saudi Arabia: Arbitrary detention of Mr. Naif Abdellah AlQahtani, detained since 42 months
Mr. Naif Mohamed Abdellah AL QAHTANI was born in 1972. He resides with his family in Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia, where he is a civil servant in the local administration.
He was arrested by agents of the Intelligence Services (Al Mabahith) in civilian clothes in a hotel in Al Ahsa, a nearby town, where he had gone together with his wife.
The agents gave no reason for his arrest nor did they exhibit a judicial warrant. They also carried out a search of his room and a body search of his wife. A sum of Saudi Ryals 5000 has been confiscated and later returned to his family.
He was taken to an unknown destination and kept in solitary confinement for 14 months without his family getting any news about his fate, despite numerous attempts do contact the Ministry of Interior of Saudi Arabia.
It was only until October 2005 that the family finally learned that he was detained in the AlHayr prison near Riyadh, and that they were authorized to visit him for the first time.
In those circumstances, his wife was told that he had been held incommunicado and in solitary confinement for 14 months and that he had never been brought before a judge or been subjected to any legal procedure.
His family has tried various approaches with the authorities to provide a lawyer to assist him but without any result. His family contacted, in the year 2006, the headquarters of the Saudi Interior Ministry in Riyadh to ask the authorities to judge Mr. AlQahtani if he were accused of any reprehensible act. The family was eventually able to meet for the first time an official from from the Interior Minister, and later Mr. Naif Bin Abdul-Aziz, the Interior Minister, himself.
However no concrete action from the autorities has been taken following theses contacts, and Mr. AlQahtani is still detained without any legal procedure. He still ignores the legal grounds for his arrest. It has been therefore more than three years that he is deprived of his liberty in an arbitrary manner.
Consequently, AlKarama has requested the Working Group to recognize the arbitrary nature of the detention of Mr. AlQahtani and to urge the Saudi authorities to take the necessary steps to remedy to this situation and bring it into conformity with the standards and principles set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, most notably by ordering his immediate release.
He was arrested by agents of the Intelligence Services (Al Mabahith) in civilian clothes in a hotel in Al Ahsa, a nearby town, where he had gone together with his wife.
The agents gave no reason for his arrest nor did they exhibit a judicial warrant. They also carried out a search of his room and a body search of his wife. A sum of Saudi Ryals 5000 has been confiscated and later returned to his family.
He was taken to an unknown destination and kept in solitary confinement for 14 months without his family getting any news about his fate, despite numerous attempts do contact the Ministry of Interior of Saudi Arabia.
It was only until October 2005 that the family finally learned that he was detained in the AlHayr prison near Riyadh, and that they were authorized to visit him for the first time.
In those circumstances, his wife was told that he had been held incommunicado and in solitary confinement for 14 months and that he had never been brought before a judge or been subjected to any legal procedure.
His family has tried various approaches with the authorities to provide a lawyer to assist him but without any result. His family contacted, in the year 2006, the headquarters of the Saudi Interior Ministry in Riyadh to ask the authorities to judge Mr. AlQahtani if he were accused of any reprehensible act. The family was eventually able to meet for the first time an official from from the Interior Minister, and later Mr. Naif Bin Abdul-Aziz, the Interior Minister, himself.
However no concrete action from the autorities has been taken following theses contacts, and Mr. AlQahtani is still detained without any legal procedure. He still ignores the legal grounds for his arrest. It has been therefore more than three years that he is deprived of his liberty in an arbitrary manner.
Consequently, AlKarama has requested the Working Group to recognize the arbitrary nature of the detention of Mr. AlQahtani and to urge the Saudi authorities to take the necessary steps to remedy to this situation and bring it into conformity with the standards and principles set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, most notably by ordering his immediate release.