British Nurses: Tortured in Saudi Arabia

LONDON (Reuters) - Two British nurses jailed in Saudi Arabia over the murder of an Australian colleague on Friday said they were tortured by Saudi police and forced into making false confessions. "I was battered, half-naked and starving. They threatene

d to gang-rape me," Lucille McLauchlan, 32, said on flying home after the sentences were commuted by Saudi Arabia's King Fahd. "I would not kill a little bird, let alone a human being," Deborah Parry, 39, said and added she would fight until she was proved innocent. They said they were accused of being lesbians and in secretly written diaries told of their 17 months in jail. Parry contemplated suicide and had to be taken to hospital and sedated when she heard news reports she was to be publicly beheaded. McLauchlan claimed the Saudi police made them re-enact the murder of Australian Yvonne Gilford in a video that took two hours to make. She said Saudi police "were enjoying having me in their power. "I thought that if I didn't say and write exactly what they demanded, I'd be repeatedly raped and very likely disposed of somewhere and no one would ever know what had happened to me." Parry said she was subjected to violence, sexual abuse, a threat of cigarette burns on her eyes and being struck across the throat. "The embassy had been turned away until we'd confessed. It was torture," she said. The two nurses confessed to Gilford's murder but later retracted their statements, saying they had been extracted after prolonged abuse by Saudi interrogators. McLauchlan, who married her boyfriend Grant Ferrie while in jail last November, was found guilty of being an accessory to the murder and sentenced to eight years in jail and 500 lashes. The sentence on Parry has never been officially announced. The Saudi ambassador to Britain said the nurses had been treated fairly by the court. The two sparked anger and outrage in Britain for selling their stories to tabloid newspapers for sums said to total 160,000 pounds ($260,000) between them. The media watchdog Press Complaints Commission has promised to investigate but McLauchlan defended the payment, saying she felt totally justified. "When you add up what has been spent it probably ends up about the same as the net figure we are being paid for our story. We have not been greedy," she said. McLauchlan faces another trial in Scotland next month on charges of fraud and theft dating from before she went to Saudi Arabia. She was charged with stealing 1,700 pounds from an elderly patient by using her cash card as she lay dying.

SkryťVypnúť reklamu
SkryťVypnúť reklamu
SkryťVypnúť reklamu
Článok pokračuje pod video reklamou
SkryťVypnúť reklamu
Článok pokračuje pod video reklamou

SkryťVypnúť reklamu

Najčítanejšie na SME

Komerčné články

  1. CTP Slovakia sa blíži k miliónu m² prenajímateľnej plochy
  2. Ako mať skvelých ľudí, keď sa mnohí pozerajú za hranice?
  3. Expertka na profesijný rozvoj: Ľudia nechcú počuť, že bude dobre
  4. Zažite začiatkom mája divadelnú revoltu v Bratislave!
  5. Myslíte si, že plavby nie sú pre vás? Zrejme zmeníte názor
  6. Jeho technológie bežia, keď zlyhá všetko ostatné
  7. Wolt Stars 2025: Najviac cien získali prevádzky v Bratislave
  8. The Last of Us je späť. Oplatilo sa čakať dva roky?
  1. Leto, ktoré musíš zažiť! - BACHLEDKA Ski & Sun
  2. Slovensko oslávi víťazstvo nad fašizmom na letisku v Piešťanoch
  3. CTP Slovakia sa blíži k miliónu m² prenajímateľnej plochy
  4. Zlaté vajcia nemusia byť od Fabergé
  5. V Košiciach otvorili veľkoformátovú lekáreň Super Dr. Max
  6. Ako mať skvelých ľudí, keď sa mnohí pozerajú za hranice?
  7. Ako ročné obdobia menia pachy domácich miláčikov?
  8. Probiotiká nie sú len na trávenie
  1. Myslíte si, že plavby nie sú pre vás? Zrejme zmeníte názor 6 688
  2. Expertka na profesijný rozvoj: Ľudia nechcú počuť, že bude dobre 6 470
  3. Unikátny pôrod tenistky Jany Čepelovej v Kardiocentre AGEL 4 734
  4. V Košiciach otvorili veľkoformátovú lekáreň Super Dr. Max 4 464
  5. CTP Slovakia sa blíži k miliónu m² prenajímateľnej plochy 3 458
  6. Jeho technológie bežia, keď zlyhá všetko ostatné 2 564
  7. Ako mať skvelých ľudí, keď sa mnohí pozerajú za hranice? 1 998
  8. Zažite začiatkom mája divadelnú revoltu v Bratislave! 1 167
SkryťVypnúť reklamu
SkryťVypnúť reklamu
SkryťZatvoriť reklamu