Agencies
Riyadh
A British citizen arrested for producing and possessing wine in Saudi Arabia is likely to be released and returned to Britain by next week, Britain’s Foreign Minister Philip Hammond said yesterday.
Karl Andree, 74, faced 350 lashes after being caught, his family said.
“I’m pleased to be able to say that the public prosecutor is now in the final stages of completing the necessary processes that will lead to Mr Andree’s release and return to the UK, we think in the next week,” Hammond said in a joint news conference with his Saudi counterpart in the capital Riyadh.
Prime Minister David Cameron added on Twitter that the news was “good to hear”.
Andree was jailed for 12 months in August last year but remains in prison awaiting further punishment for breaking Saudi laws prohibiting alcohol after police found the wine in his car, his family said.
Cameron wrote to the Saudi government about Andree’s case earlier this month and his spokeswoman had called the case “extremely concerning”.
Andree worked in Saudi Arabia’s oil industry for 25 years.
Earlier this month, the British government abandoned a bid to provide training to the Saudi penal system, a contract potentially worth £5.9mn ($9mn), amid reports of a split between ministers.
Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Britain, in a highly unusual intervention on Monday, said it would “not be lectured to by anyone” over human rights.
“To further our shared strategic interests in the years ahead as we confront a variety of threats, it is crucial that Saudi Arabia be treated with the respect it has unwaveringly afforded the United Kingdom,” Mohamed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz wrote in the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Saudi Arabia is Britain’s most important trade partner in the Middle East and was its biggest market for arms exports last year.
