Children face Saudi sword
by Marie Colvin

THE scene was pitiful: two girls, aged 8 and 13, sobbing at Jeddah's
international airport after being found with heroin inside their bodies and
held by customs with 18 other members of their family.

It was hard to imagine that their plight could have been any worse. Within
hours both faced charges of drug trafficking and possible execution by sword.

Their ordeal began as the family ­ poor farmers from Punjab ostensibly on a
pilgrimage to Mecca, home of the Prophet Muhammad ­ disembarked at King
Abdel Aziz airport at the end of a flight from Islamabad.

As they filed through the airport, a chaotic group of 12 adults and nine
children, customs officials noticed that some appeared unusually lethargic
and were walking strangely. Their suspicions intensified when they saw that
the adults ate and drank nothing, and refused the children refreshments.

They were taken to a private section of the airport, where a doctor and
nurses removed a total of 10lb of pure heroin that had been concealed
inside their bodies. If they had consumed food or drink, any swallowed bags
of heroin could have burst in their stomachs and killed them almost
instantly.

The Saudi authorities arrested the two girls ­ the eightyearold, who has
been identified only as Mushrafeh, and Nargis, 13 ­ with the adults in the
party. The only carrier of heroin not charged was another girl, Anem, 5,
who had two packages of heroin weighing 71.5g inside her and was said to
have been in pain. It is thought she may eventually go to relatives or
foster parents in Pakistan.

Mushrafeh had swallowed two eggshaped packages containing 208.4g of the
drug; Nargis had concealed four packages weighing 152.7g. The adults were
carrying far larger quantities. Of two pregnant women one, named as Ghul
Shen, 20, was carrying five bags weighing 376.6g: the largest single cache.

After the drugs were confiscated, the family was placed in the Bari Man
prison, separated according to gender. A representative of the Pakistani
consulate in Jeddah was allowed one visit to check on their welfare, and
reported that he had found the women and girls crying hysterically.

The Saudis said initially that the girls would be deported, prompting
Pakistan's interior minister to announce three weeks ago that he had been
assured they would be granted clemency. However, the Saudi government has
since said their case would have to go through the religious courts.
Mushrafeh and Nargis will go on trial for their lives with the adult
members of their family.

Their treatment has shocked human rights organisations. The government in
Riyadh has ignored requests from Amnesty International and Human Rights
Watch for information.

The family is living in appalling conditions. Women, children and infants
are crowded into cells, sanitation is poor, and they survive on bread and
rice, supplemented sometimes with small pieces of meat.

A Saudi diplomat said yesterday he believed a child of eight, if convicted,
would not be executed because the sharia law that applies allows clemency
to be shown if the judges believe she is not sufficiently mature to have
appreciated the gravity of her actions. Nargis, the 13yearold, is in
greater danger.

"Under no circumstances should the death penalty be imposed on children,"
said an official at Amnesty International, which has called on Saudi Arabia
not to put either girl on trial. "They lack the understanding of criminal
acts such as drug trafficking and therefore cannot be held responsible."

The family now faces a long period of uncertainty. As in the case of
Deborah Parry and Lucille McLauchlan, the British nurses charged with
murdering an Australian colleague, the charges against the family must be
considered first by a lower religious court. An elaborate mandatory appeal
process is likely to follow before any sentence is confirmed. The process
is conducted in secret and they will not be allowed defence lawyers.

Human rights campaigners believe that while the plight of the children is
most pressing, the women should be treated leniently on the grounds that
they would have had little option but to obey the commands of male relatives.

Islamic scholars reacted with horror to the children's ordeal. Youssef
AlKhoei, director of the AlKhoei foundation in London, said the problem
in such a case was not the tenets of sharia law but the fact that the
religious courts in Saudi Arabia followed a particularly narrow school of
interpretation. "They are extremist and literalist," he said.

Pakistan appears to have done little to help the family. "The problem is
that Pakistan sends many workers to Saudi Arabia and the government does
not want to jeopardise the money that is sent back," said an Amnesty
International source.