Mohammed Al-Subaie
Okaz/Saudi Gazette
AL-KHORMAH — The Saudi Embassy in Turkey is currently investigating an incident where the Turkish authorities stopped six Saudi travelers at the airport for 10 hours before deporting them to the Kingdom at their own expenses earlier this month.
The Saudi travelers told Okaz/Saudi Gazette that the Turkish security authorities accused them of belonging to Daesh (the so-called IS) for no obvious reason.
Sultan Abdullah Al-Harithy, one of the six travelers, said they arrived at Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in the morning of May 5 when the airport security stopped them for routine checks.
“After the routine security checks were completed, the airport security officials detained one of us,” he said.
“While we were waiting for our colleague, a number of Turkish security officers came to us and took us to where our colleague was detained,” he added.
Harithy said they asked the security authorities why they were being detained and were told that they were Daesh members.
“We asked on what grounds were we considered members of Daesh, but the officers had no ready answer for us,” he said.
The traveler said the security officers asked them about their professions and they told them that the group consisted of doctors, engineers, teachers and others.
“An officer continued to search us in a very weird way. He also photographed us and made us sign two papers, the contents of which we did not know,” he said.
Harithy said the security officers took their mobile phones, purses, passports and other belongings.
“We used the mobile phone of an Arab traveler to call an official in our embassy who redirected us to call another official. Our attempts to reach the embassy to get help were not successful,” he said.
Harithy said the Turkish security authorities asked them to pay the ticket fares back to the Kingdom which were SR12,000 in addition to SR500 as deportation fees.
He said the Turkish authorities informed them that they were banned from entering Turkey.
He said they filed a complaint at the Foreign Ministry about two weeks ago but nothing has happened.
Saudi Ambassador to Turkey Adel Mirdad said the embassy wrote an official letter to the Turkish Foreign Ministry inquiring about the incident.
He said the letter also asked about the cruel treatment meted out to the six Saudi travelers at the airport.
