The last time Amaher Nour saw her husband was in the passport queue at Riyadh airport, moments before he was taken away by plain-clothed security.
For seven months Ahmed al-Doush, 41, a British citizen and senior business analyst at Bank of America, has been detained in a maximum security prison in Saudi Arabia.
It is understood that he is being held under Saudi Arabia’s severe anti-terrorism laws, on charges which include criticising the government on social media and association with a Saudi dissident who is based in London. But his family, from Manchester, are baffled.
Doush, who was born in Sudan, has never posted about Saudi Arabia on his X account, which has just 37 followers. He used the account to share inspirational quotes and entertain a casual interest in geopolitics, his family say.
“The night times are the hardest for me when I’m alone and it’s quiet,” Nour said. “I keep asking myself why, why, why has this happened, and I can’t get to the bottom of it because it’s not rational in any way. He has no political associations.”
His lawyer in Britain has not seen any documentation of his charges — both the offensive tweets and the dissident in question remain a mystery to her.
The family believe Doush is accused of knowing Saad al-Faqih, a prominent Saudi dissident who was sanctioned in 2004 by the US Treasury over alleged links to al-Qaeda, which he has denied. Doush has never met Faqih but knows his son, according to his family.
Haydee Dijkstal, Doush’s lawyer, of 33 Bedford Row, understands that he was tried by Saudi Arabia’s Specialised Criminal Court after his arrest on August 31. The court has previously sentenced offenders to death for social media posts and has been described by Amnesty International as an “instrument of repression”.
Based on the questions asked during his extensive interrogations, the family believes that the social media accusations relate to a 2018 tweet Doush wrote about the political situation in Sudan, which provided military support for Saudi Arabia in Yemen. The tweet made no mention of Saudi Arabia and was later deleted.
His case has emerged at a time when Saudi Arabia is again enjoying a comfortable relationship with the UK and other western powers. Seven years after the kingdom was condemned for the murder of the dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, Saudi cities have in recent weeks hosted diplomatic discussions over the futures of Gaza, Ukraine and Syria.
Earlier this month Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, called Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi ruler, to “congratulate him for his pivotal role in the US-led [Ukraine conflict] ceasefire talks in Jeddah”.
In addition to building the country’s diplomatic profile the crown prince has also sought to woo tourists and present the kingdom as a transformed economy and society, through his Vision 2030 programme and social reforms affording women basic rights such as permission to drive.
What has not changed is the country’s historically high use of harsh criminal sentences, up to and including the death penalty, for both residents and foreigners. The kingdom carried out more than 300 executions last year for a range of alleged crimes. UN special rapporteurs voiced concern that a significant proportion were foreign nationals.
Campaigners against capital punishment say that Saudi judges have repeatedly misused counterterrorism legislation to issue death sentences to political dissidents.
Doush moved to the UK in about 2011 and gained his citizenship in 2017. He will be sentenced in April, his family has been told, for crimes that can carry the death penalty. A complaint that Saudi Arabia has breached international law by withholding legal representation from him and failing to inform him of his charges, among other alleged failings, has been submitted to the UN by his legal team.
Dijkstal said: “Under international law — law that Saudi Arabia is obligated to follow — the reason for detaining someone cannot be because they practised or exercised their fundamental rights, in this case the right to free speech and association.”
In 2022, Salma al-Shehab, now 37, a Saudi citizen who was then studying at the University of Leeds, was sentenced to six years in prison for tweeting in support of women’s rights, a punishment later increased to 34 years. She was released last month.
Jeed Basyouni of the human rights charity Reprieve, which campaigns against the use of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, said: “Whilst the release of Salma al-Shehab is welcome, there are thousands more prisoners in Saudi Arabia like Ahmed [al-Doush] subject to severe human rights violations and imprisoned against the backdrop of an escalating death penalty crisis. We are extremely worried about his safety and call on the UK government to secure his release as a matter of urgency.”
Doush’s continuing detention has meant that he missed the birth of his fourth child, Youssef, in December. Nour is trying to ensure that her baby has a relationship with his father. “I put the phone to Youssef’s ear every time we call and tell him, ‘This is daddy,’” she said.
Doush and Nour had been in Saudi Arabia with their son Ali, seven, and daughters Leia, nine, and Haya, five, visiting family, who are expats living in the kingdom.
Nour said: “The authorities asked for his documents and we thought it was just a problem with his visa. He called me from security and told me to fly with the children on to Turkey, our transit stop, and said, ‘I’ll be with you shortly.’”
Only when they arrived in Manchester was it confirmed that he had been jailed.
For 33 days after his arrest Doush, who has a chronic thyroid condition and a back injury, was held in solitary confinement. His lawyer says he was denied British consular assistance and access to legal representation for two months, in an apparent breach of international law.
It was not until November 17 that Doush was allowed a weekly ten-minute call to his wife. In the months that followed, Nour woke up at 6am every Wednesday to speak to Doush, who has said that he is sharing a cell with other foreigners.
She said: “The first time I heard his voice, I broke down and so did he. He tried to stay calm. He was asking, ‘How are you, how are the kids? I was worried that you guys didn’t get home safely.’ “Every time I asked, ‘How are you?’, he would say, ‘I’m OK, don’t worry about me, I’m just really worried about you guys.’”
Doush worked on short-term contracts with Bank of America so is no longer being paid. Because Nour has been unable to get bank account details from Doush, who handled the family’s finances, she is using food banks to feed herself and her children.
But while Nour is pleading with the Foreign Office to press the Saudi government to release Doush, the government says it cannot secure the release of British nationals from detention overseas or interfere in the judicial systems of another country.
Requests by the family to meet David Lammy, the foreign secretary, remain unanswered. A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are supporting a British man who is detained in Saudi Arabia and are in contact with his family and the local authorities.”
