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Riyadh: Senior Saudi officials were holding high-level talks with authorities in the United States in a bid to win the release of a Saudi man convicted of sexually assaulting an Indonesian housekeeper and keeping her as a virtual slave, the official Saudi Press Agency reported yesterday.
The Saudi officials, who were not identified further, "intervened on the highest levels to resolve the case," the agency said, without providing details.
Homaidan Al Turki, a 37-year-old resident of the Denver, Colorado suburb of Aurora, was sentenced in late August to 28 years to life in prison after he was convicted of unlawful sexual contact by use of force, theft and extortion, all felonies, and misdemeanor counts of false imprisonment and conspiracy to commit false imprisonment.
Charges denied
Al Turki, a linguist who worked at a Denver publishing and translating company, denied the charges and blamed anti-Muslim prejudice.
He said prosecutors persuaded the housekeeper to accuse him after they failed to build a case that he was a terrorist.
Al Turki said he has been under investigation as a suspected terrorist since 1995 but has never been charged with the crime.
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