No contacts with Saudis in Iraqi prisons for 4 years

RIYADH — For the last four years, there have been no news about some 70 Saudis who were spending time in Iraqi prisons, Al-Watan newspaper reported on Wednesday quoting informed private sources. The sources said there were no communications of any sort with the prisoners all these years. They said the prisoners' families get news about them only from the families of the Iraqi prisoners who visit them in prisons. The sources said 54 Saudis were locked up in the notorious Al-Nassiriah prison while 10 were held on death row in Al-Rasafah prison in Baghdad after summary trials. They said the Iraqi government did not notify the Saudi Embassy in Baghdad when they were put on trial and sentenced to death. There are six other Saudi prisoners in the airport prison in Al-Muthana. The sources said they expect the prisoners to be executed any moment as the Iraqi government did not respect existing agreements, including the one about the swapping of prisoners signed by the Saudi interior minister and the Iraqi justice minister. The sources said the families of prisoners asked both the ministries of interior and foreign affairs to expedite their efforts to solve this riddle. The sources, however, doubted any favorable response to come from the Iraqi government, which they described as the main obstacle obstructing any solution to the prisoner issue. They said the Iraqi government was only concerned with its own interests and that the prisoners, either Iraqi or Saudi, were on the bottom of its priorities. A father of one of the Saudi prisoners, who opted not to be identified, said he asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to exert more efforts to end the predicament of the Saudi prisoners in Iraq who are facing obscure future. The father said he also appealed to the international human rights organizations, including the Amnesty, to exert more pressure on the Iraqi government to end the plight of the Saudi prisoners. The father also appealed to the Saudi Red Crescent Authority to liaise with the International Red Cross to provide the prisoners with winter clothes and to facilitate prison visits by family members.