UKs ambassador to Saudi Arabia accuses security forces colluding with terrorists

[Don Rizzle]

Envoy in Saudi 'collusion' claim
The UK's ambassador to Saudi Arabia says he believes the Saudi security services may have helped in the escape of a gang who killed 22 people.
Briton Michael Hamilton, 61, who was born in Kilmarnock and lived in Sussex, was among those killed in a siege in the Saudi city of Khobar in May.

His family believes the Saudi forces colluded with the terrorists.

Ambassador Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles told Radio 4's Today there appeared to have been some sort of "arrangement".

Security forces

Mr Cowper-Coles told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It is impossible to imagine the terrorists escaping without some sort of understanding with the security forces.


 I think they were allowed to escape purely because of their connections with the internal security at Saudi
Douglas Hamilton 

"One cannot be clear exactly what happened. We are still piecing it together. The Metropolitan Police haven't finalised their internal report.
"But it does look as though there was something that enabled the terrorists to get out of that compound, which was surrounded by a very large number of security forces".

Mr Hamilton's brother, Douglas, also criticised Saudi security forces for allowing militants to escape.

He added: "The thought that 40 special security people went in through various doors and in through the roof and they could not contain three men appears to be totally beyond belief.

"I think if you equate that with the number of the SAS required to take this little lot out, it would have been very small and I think the result would have been conclusive.

"I think they were allowed to escape purely because of their connections with the internal security at Saudi".

Potential threat


But Jamal Khashoggi, a media adviser to the Saudi Ambassador to London, claims that security in charge of the siege were worried that the militants might have taken hostages.

He added: "The issue of colluding, it is not the case at all.

"The speculation we have is that they had to let them go, because there was a potential threat of hostages".

Mr Hamilton's body was tied to the back of a car before it was dragged through the streets for more than a mile.

He had just dropped off his wife, Penelope, at a residential compound near the Araba Petroleum Investments Corporation moments before the attack took place.

Mrs Hamilton told the Today programme: "Neither of us could never have known what was going to happen. It has been a terrible time for all of us and I still can't really come to terms with the fact that it has happened.

"I think they (the attackers) are evil. I think they are sick. They are doing their country no good. They are not doing Islam any good. They are not true Muslims. I have nothing but disgust for them".

Mr Hamilton was killed along with 21 other people in the first of three attacks which culminated in a siege.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk/3636926.stm

[7even]

the Saudis can do whatever the fuck they want, but other Middle Eastern countries get randomly threatened with war just for the hell of it.

[Trauma-san]

This never would have happened if the Bush presidency didn't fly the saudis out of America after 9/11.  Or something like that. 

[King Tech Quadafi]

I love how the Saudis are now this big bad powerful lobby that controls Washington. Man, those Jew Boys in DC are smart as hell.

[Sikotic™]

Good ol crooked ass politics. Gotta love it!