A Yemeni journalist who escaped from one of the secret prisons set up by Saudi Arabia in the Yemeni Al-Mahra region revealed that he was subjected to various types of torture.
Yahya al-Sarawi, a 27-year-old journalist who spent 56 days in jail before fleeing, has been investigating months of abuses committed by Saudi Arabia in al-Mahra before he was kidnapped on July 3 and transferred between Saudi prisons inside the province.
In an exclusive interview with the French news website Mediaapart, Sarraoui recounts details of the torture he has suffered at Mahra prisons, including a secret prison believed to be inside Ghaida airport.
He says he once addressed an interrogator - later identified as Maj. Gen. Hazza al-Mutairi, the brigadier-general of the navy and the commander of Saudi forces in al-Mahra - saying, "Will I be the next Jamal Khashoggi?"
He confirms that several charges have been leveled against him to justify his imprisonment, including spying for Hezbollah, Qatar, Oman and the Houthis, stressing that the Saudis once asked him to provide them with the names of Qatari officers.
Prior to his arrest, al-Sarrawi published a detailed report, supported by information and testimonies, documenting the intensive military access of Saudi forces to the Mahra at the end of 2017.He explained how these forces illegally seized the port of Nishtoon, the Al-Shaheen and Sarafet border posts with Oman, and Ghaida Airport, one of the last airports. A country that provides a safe exit for civilians.
In his report, he explained how Saudi Arabia intervened in the province's affairs by replacing its governor, Muhammad Abdullah Keda, and Rajeh Bakrit, a Yemeni with a Saudi passport and ordering Riyadh's orders.
And how bloody suppression of peaceful demonstrations, and set up military bases, and involved in the looting and arrest of opponents, and the establishment of armed militias, and sent foreign Salafis to fight in the province.
He also noted in his report that Saudi Arabia was trying to build a pipeline from its border to the port of Mahra, which would allow it, if it were to, to pass through the Strait of Hormuz and thus avoid Iranian threats and reduce the cost of exporting oil.
Al-Sarrawi asserts that this project has been implemented since the eighties, but the local population rejected it altogether. Riyadh saw the chaos in the current Yemen as a suitable cover to revive it and implement its plans.
Al-Sarawi recounts how, because of the torture he had suffered inside his prison, he attempted suicide, but he could not. He managed to dig a small outlet a few months later outside his cell, where he fled and then walked for dozens of kilometers before being smuggled by the Mahri opposition forces to Amman.
In retaliation for his escape, Saudi forces tortured his brother, who was also detained, and subjected him to sexual abuse.