Physician with dual US citizenship beaten up in KSA

A physician with dual citizenship in Saudi Arabia and the United States was tortured while being detained in Saudi Arabia, reports American-based news portal thehill.com.

Quoting The New York Times, The Hill reported that the physician, Walid Fitaihi, was blindfolded, slapped and stripped to his underwear before being bound to a chair and shocked with electricity days after being detained in November 2017.

The incident appears to have been a single episode of torture that lasted about an hour.

Fitaihi is a Harvard-trained physician and was imprisoned amid what Saudi Arabia called a crackdown on corruption. A friend of Fitaihi told The New York Times that the physician was beaten so severely that he couldn't sleep on his back for days.

The report comes as the Trump administration has faced criticism for its response to the death of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last year. US intelligence agencies have reportedly concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for Khashoggi's death, but president Trump has refrained from blaming the crown prince.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) wrote in a tweet Saturday night that he is "deeply troubled by reports of Saudi Arabia torturing an American citizen."

"He and other political prisoners must be released. This is despicable in aftermath of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi," Durbin added.

A spokesman for Saudi Arabia told the Times in a statement that the kingdom prohibits torture.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia takes any and all allegations of ill treatment of defendants awaiting trial or prisoners serving their sentences very seriously,” the spokesman said.