Saudi Arabia: Arbitrary detention of Mr Khalid Al Shammari

Mr Khalid Said Khalid al-Shammari was born on 7 September 1980 and lives with his family in Kuwait City and carries an identity card for the stateless.

He was arrested by security services, probably the Saudi General Intelligence (Al Al Mabahit Aama) in January 2007 in Mecca, where he had gone on pilgrimage.

His family having no longer heard from him since he left Kuwait on 27 December 2006, were concerned about his disappearance and conducted numerous searches to find him.

They only managed to obtain confirmation from the travel agency that he had gone to Mecca where he had actually made the pilgrimage, without further details.

It was not until August 2007, eight months after his disappearance that his family received a telephone call from him, by which they were told that he had been held since January 2007 by the intelligence services in Jizan. He could obviously not give more details on the reasons and conditions of his incommunicado detention by telephone.

His father then stepped up efforts to try to visit his son, to know why he was being detained, and provide him with a lawyer to assist him.

In particular, he addressed himself to the Jizan prison administration and the Saudi Embassy in Kuwait but always in vain.

It was only in May 2008 that his father was authorized, for the first time, to visit him in Abha prison where he had just been transferred. During the visit of around one and a half hours, he was able to have confirmation that he had not been tried nor brought before a judge since his arrest, and that he was not the subject of legal proceedings.

Mr Al Shammari, is, in these conditions, deprived of his liberty in an arbitrary manner. His current detention is contrary to both the internal legal norms and relevant international standards set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.