What Will Gorgeous George Do Now ?

[Lachlan09]

Now that his bum-chum Gadaffi is gone to a better place, what's George Galloway going to do now for an audience ?

Never fear - he's still got Iran !

For some time, he's had a phone-in political TV programme on Iranian TV - the state-run Press TV channel. I sometimes turn it on for entertainment - and he does entertain, I'll give him that. So at least he's still got pals among the nutters.

As a change, I can turn to the Saudi-run MBC channels, all of which right now are showing continuous programmes on the life and times and mourning for their crown prince raghead who's died.

[Polwarth]

Ooyah, Lachlan.... .ur you no feart that the secret polis are scannin your internet comments?

(I know you don't live in Saudi, but don't they have a long arm aroon the Gulf?!)

[Lachlan09]

Nah - Ah'm no' feart o' nuhhin' ! Ah'm Scottish !

[Polwarth]

Ooooh, get you, the Tuffie Fae Mussie!

[Lachlan09]

Did you read about this Scotsman in Saudi - back in the late 1970's ?

A SCOTS bootlegger has told how Saudi cops beat the soles of his feet as he was manacled to a tree. Gordon Malloch spoke out about his jail ordeal in Saudi Arabia as four Brits languish in prison for illegally trading whisky. Former Greenock fireman, Dave Mornin, 49, and three English colleagues have been sentenced to flogging for their crime.

Speaking for the first time about his nightmare, Gordon described how his life of luxury fell apart after he was caught red-handed with a house full of drink. He was sentenced to three and a half years in jail, 460 lashes and fined 120,000 pounds. He was hung by handcuffs from a tree for three days, his feet were beaten with a rod and he was deprived of sleep. After the British ambassador stepped in to help, he was granted amnesty and allowed home - having managed to avoid being lashed.

But he can never forget the 17 months he survived in Saudi Arabia's hellhole jails.

Claims that at least one of the four Brits now being held in the oil-rich state has been tortured while in custody are being investigated by British diplomats in the capital Riyadh.

But Gordon, 47, said torture and physical abuse were commonplace under the brutal prison regime. The Scot saw some of his fellow inmates being lashed. And he claims others were tortured with cattle prods. He said: "If my experience is anything to go by - and I have no reason to think anything will have changed - then they are in for it."

Gordon, who was born in Pitlochry, Perthshire, made and spent a fortune during his years in the bootleg trade.

While working as a catering manager for an American firm, he started his illegal alcohol operation by making his own "white lightning" at his villa in Riyadh. Then he moved on to importing huge amounts of whisky. But he was caught as the last consignment arrived.

Gordon said: "I bought a still for 5000 pounds. It was a work of art. I hid it behind a brieze-block wall I put up in the villa. I started brewing 40 litres of pure 180 proof every week".

"I put it through the still three times. The way I used to check it was to pour it on to a spoon and light it. It would burn away to nothing because it was pure alcohol. Then I would dilute it down to 90 per cent proof and sell it. It went to foreign workers."

"Not many of them make their own whisky, although they do make wine and beer. Mine was proper stuff and I was very proud of it. There was some other stuff on the go, but it could cause problems with people's eyesight."

"Most people got caught brewing because they were buying large amounts of sugar. I never had that problem because I was running a catering firm and I could buy as much sugar as I wanted and no-one would question it."

"I became involved with some Germans and Austrians and we decided to start importing whisky. It came hidden in great big, empty, oil tanks about 35ft long and 8ft high."

"The whisky was bought in the UK for export - usually Johnnie Walker, Black Label and Chivas Regal. It was bought with documents claiming it would be exported legitimately to Austria. But it was never exported. It was put into these drums and sent to Saudi. You're not supposed to be able to get into the drums, but they each had a control panel. You could unscrew it and squeeze in through the hole."

"We took the stuff out at night. The first thing we did was cut off the code on each box and destroy it so that the whisky could never be traced if you got caught. It was some operation. We were smuggling in 1400 cases every two months and we were getting 1200 pounds for a case with 12 bottles in it."

"I loved my Ferraris then and we had motorbikes which we used to roar off into the desert for barbecues and booze. Up to 60 people would be at the parties. We were living life to the full and money was no object."

The smugglers had no problem attracting customers in teetotal Saudi.

Gordon said: "The Saudi in the street never got any. It went to the security forces and to one of the really high princes of the Saudi royal family. He used to buy 40 cases at a time."

It was this link with royalty which led to Gordon and his associates being caught.

He said: "The prince had a Palestinian servant who sold us out to the police in return for a 10,000 pound reward and a Saudi passport. It was the passport he was really after. The irony was that it was the last shipment. I was due to go home. I had banked more than 100,000 pounds back in the UK when we were arrested."

Then the grim reality set in. Gordon revealed: "I was handcuffed and manacled and they shaved my head. Then, on the first day, they hung me from a tree with the handcuffs over a branch. My feet were just touching the ground. They beat my feet and I was given only water. During the day, the temperature was over 100 degrees but at night it was cold. I was there for three days. They kept asking who I was involved with. But, by this time, they had got us all and there was nothing I could tell them, even if I had wanted to."

"If you had been involved in importation - and I was guilty, all right - you could also have been involved in the importation of guns. It meant you knew how to bring things in illegally. I met some gun smugglers in jail and they told me they had been there for 10 years."

Gordon and his fellow smugglers were first taken to the notorious Malaz prison in Riyadh.

He said: "There were about 100 prisoners crowded into a room which should not have held more than 20. We were there for about four months before we were sentenced. I had to sleep standing up. There was no place to lie down."

"The food was hellish. They would bring in lamb and I detest lamb. It was chopped up with an axe with splinters. I never used to like dates or olives, but now I'm addicted to them."

"Malaz was a crazy place. One day, a one-legged prisoner died in our cell. Before they took his body out, they handcuffed his crutch to his remaining leg. You had to be handcuffed. Rules are rules."

Then Gordon and his fellow smugglers learned their fate.

He revealed: "We did not go to court. We were ushered into a room in handcuffs and shackles and handed a scabby bit of paper written in Arabic.

"Then we were told what our sentences were. There was no legal representation. Don't get me wrong, I was guilty. For goodness sake, I was caught with 100 cases of whisky at my villa - but to this day, they have not found the still."

Gordon was transferred to the Alhair jail in the desert to serve the rest of his sentence. The cells there each had eight bunks in them. He said: "At one point, seven of us were shackled together to go and see the British consul. We were trying to walk in unison, but when we got to the office, there was not one of us who did not have cut legs. And I remember the shackles were made in Birmingham."

"I did 17 months and came out on amnesty. I was never lashed.

"Westerners don't tend to get lashed, but there was one yank there and he got lashed. He got about 180. They did it 20 to 30 at a time. But it is more a symbolic punishment with Westerners. They do not put full force into it - but they give it full pelt to the Saudis. The Yank's back was bruised but not cut. I know that another prisoner was tortured with cattle prods."

When the amnesty came through, Gordon did not pay any of his 120,000 pound fine. He was transferred to prison Kilo 19 - so named because it is 19 kilometres from Riyadh airport. But the living nightmare still went on.

Gordon said: "An agreement was made that 42 British prisoners were to be released. But Kilo 19 was hell. No Saudis were ever in there because it was only for people who were being thrown out of the country. We were there for three weeks. The only thing that kept you surviving was the knowledge that you were getting out. Going to the toilet was a waste of time. It was just an open cesspit. The walls were covered in slime and white worms. You tried not to eat. After a week, we were covered in sores. An embassy representative came to see us. There were five Brits waiting to be released. We took our rags off and walked in to see him naked. It did the trick - we were out the next day."

Back home, Gordon ran a couple of pubs and restaurants in England before returning to Scotland last year. He now hopes to open a restaurant on the west coast.

He says: "I know I was in the wrong, but I would never wish what happened to me on anyone. Even if, like me, they are guilty."

A definite case for obeying their laws !

[Polwarth]

Aye, yer no' wrang thur...