Their shock was premature. Last week’s BBC report was premature; in fact, no verdict had yet been handed down on Parry. And negotiations had already begun that seemed highly likely to spare the women punishments under Saudi Arabia’s version of traditional Islamic justice. Still, the case created the biggest row between the two countries for 17 years. In 1980, British television aired a dramatization of the execution of a Saudi princess convicted of adultery. In the dispute that followed, both countries withdrew their ambassadors for three months.
Although the facts of the murder remain murky, the case has placed the Saudi system on trial once again. Human-rights groups accuse the kingdom of an increasing reliance on the death penalty; according to Human Rights Watch, at least 540 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia since 1990, most by beheading. The nurses’ case created a delicate diplomatic problem for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, riding high after his deft handling of Princess Diana’s funeral. CAN BLAIR LET THIS HAPPEN? demanded the Daily Mail.
No, he can’t. The British government has been quietly encouraging a deal to pay diya, or blood money, to Yvonne Gilford’s brother Frank, an Australian courier. In return for $1.2 million–$500,000 of which would go to a children’s hospital in Australia–Frank Gilford would exercise his right under Saudi law to waive the death penalty. Both Parry’s and McLauchlan’s sentences could be reduced. Fleet Street reported that the money could come from one or more British defense firms, which do about $4 billion in business each year with the kingdom. British officials say only that no public funds would be used. ““We don’t think it’s going to be a problem’’ raising the money, said one official. Frank Gilford said he had not decided whether to accept a deal. Charges by both women that they were forced into false confessions have added to Britain’s outrage. McLauchlan, 31, has written a formal retraction in which she claims that while being questioned she was not given water or allowed to use the toilet; that her questioners stamped on her feet incessantly; that ““Major X and another policeman feel and poke my breasts’’; that ““Colonel Y puts his hands between my legs and laughs when I start crying’’; that ““comments are continually made about how pretty I am and would I like to have a policeman’s baby.’’ Finally, she wrote, ““I have had enough as I am 100 percent positive I am very close to being raped. I agree to write the statement.’’ Parry, 38, said she broke down after days of interrogation when McLauchlan implicated her; she also has retracted her statement of guilt.
Coerced or not, the confessions are lurid. All three worked in the medical wing of the King Fahd military complex in Dhahran. McLauchlan told investigators that Parry killed Gilford in a rage. ““Debbie went berserk,’’ said McLauchlan, who claims Parry stabbed Gilford in her bedroom repeatedly with a bread knife. McLauchlan admitted she held a pillow over Gilford’s face ““until she was suffocated.’’ Afterward, Parry said, McLauchlan took Gilford’s ATM card. The Saudi authorities have reportedly said they arrested the two accused after they withdrew money from Gilford’s account a week after the murder.
Defense lawyers say the prosecution’s case is riddled with inconsistencies. Among other things, the defense says that detectives found blond hair gripped in Gilford’s hand; but neither of the accused is a blonde. The lawyers claim police have come up with no explanation for a man’s gold bracelet found on Gilford’s bedroom floor. If they appeal the verdicts, the women’s case would turn on such arguments. But it may not come to that. More likely, a senior British official suggested at the weekend, the case will ““come to closure behind closed doors.’’ That’s the Saudi way.
