The mother of a youth facing beheading for taking part in protests in Saudi Arabia has pleaded with US President Barack Obama to rescue her son
The boy, Shiite Ali al-Nimr
The woman made the plea in an interview published by the British daily, the Guardian Thursday.
The sentence against Shiite Ali al-Nimr, only 17 when he was arrested in February 2012, has drawn international condemnation over his young age and allegations that he was tortured into making a confession.
His mother, Nusra al-Ahmed speaking with the newspaper, said: “When I visited my son for the first time I didn’t recognise him,”
“I could clearly see a wound on his forehead. Another wound on his nose. They disfigured it. Even his body, he was too thin.
“For a month he was peeing blood,” she added. “He said he felt like a mass of pain, his body was no more.”
In an interview with AFP last month, his father Mohammed al-Nimr said he hoped the king would save his son and warned that if his son is put to death the minority Shiite community could react violently.
Mother Nusra al-Ahmed called the sentence — which she said would involve her son being crucified after he is decapitated — “backwards in the extreme”.
“No sane and normal human being would rule against a child of 17 years old using such a sentence. And why? He didn’t shed any blood, he didn’t steal any property.”
She called on Obama to exert his influence on the Saudi authorities.
“He is the head of this world and he can interfere and rescue my son,” she said.