“No,” Grishkov said, shaking his head. “I meant in general.”
“Well then, prison visits,” Vasilyev answered with a smile.
“Ah, one of your duties when you were with the Embassy,” Grishkov said.
“Correct,” Vasilyev nodded. “Not so much for the Russian citizens I visited. Their cases were fairly straightforward, and the Saudis treated them reasonably well. No, it was talking with the warden that was particularly interesting.”
“For example?” Grishkov asked.
“Well, I saw one article in the local paper that puzzled me. A man had been convicted of murder, and now after seventeen years had just been executed.
There is no lengthy appeals process here, so I wondered what could have accounted for the delay. I asked the warden on my next prison visit.”
Vasilyev paused, and was clearly thinking back to the visit. “When I asked him if he knew of the case, the warden laughed and said ‘Of course! He was at this prison. The delay was caused because under the law, the nearest male relative of the victim had to be given a choice of a cash payment from the guilty man’s family, or the man’s execution. This provision was put in the Koran to prevent endless warfare between tribes, with one revenge killing answered by another, by providing an honorable alternative. Of course these days the relative always asks for execution.”
“So I said, OK, but I still don’t understand the delay. The warden said with a smile, ‘Because in his case the nearest male relative was an infant. They had to wait for him to grow up to make the choice.’ I nodded and thanked him for clearing up the mystery. I then commented that such a thing must happen only every fifty years or so. He laughed and said ‘Not at all! We have a whole wing devoted to such cases!’ I must have appeared doubtful, because he then insisted on giving me a tour, describing the crimes and the sentences of each inmate as we passed their cells. I asked him about the mental state of these prisoners waiting years for certain death, and he laughed again, saying
‘Oh, they’re all quite insane.’ It is indeed a vivid memory.”
Grishkov shook his head. “I’ve heard that executions are public?”
Vasilyev nodded. “Yes. Though I’ve never attended, I have spoken to Russians who have. Both then and now, execution is carried out through beheading by sword.”
Grishkov shrugged. “Surely, an effective deterrent?”
Vasilyev shook his head. “You would think so, but not based on the TV coverage I saw.”
Grishkov frowned. “Surely they didn’t televise the executions!”
Vasilyev smiled, “No, certainly not. But every week, as part of the news there would be a map of the Kingdom with little dots appearing all over it, and the newscaster saying ‘Here is where executions took place this week, and what the criminals did.’ That’s when I first learned that besides murder, other crimes were punishable by execution.”
“Such as?” Grishkov asked.
“Opposition to the government, rape and adultery. Adultery, though, was not punished by beheading,” Vasilyev explained.
Grishkov nodded. “I think I have heard of this. An adulteress is killed by stoning, yes? And it would always be a woman, correct?”
Vasilyev gave an answering nod. “Correct. The old method involved a crowd that would chase the woman, pelting her with rocks until she died. The new method involves staking out the woman on the ground, backing up a dump truck full of rocks and dropping its contents on her. It is, at least, faster.”
Grishkov frowned, “I’ve also heard that they chop off hands for theft. That must scare off potential thieves!”
Vasilyev smiled ruefully. “You’d think so, but no. When I was with the Embassy I lived in a housing compound we shared with a local bank. Thieves broke into the homes of my neighbors many times, each time stealing only currency while the residents slept, so that once the thieves were in the street there would be no real evidence against them. After all, almost everyone carried multiple types of foreign currency. I, however, was never robbed.”
Grishkov laughed. “And how were you so lucky?”
Vasilyev snorted. “Luck had nothing to do with it. My neighbors, even after being victims of theft, persisted in believing that nobody would risk losing their hand and so were careless about locking their doors and windows. I knew that the thieves would, as long as they believed the risk of capture minimal. So, I locked my doors and windows. However, I did notice one thing that forced me to ask the warden another question on my next prison visit.”
Grishkov smiled. “And what was that?”
“Well,” Vasilyev said slowly, “I noticed that nobody I saw in the Kingdom in my first year was missing a hand. Not in airports, train stations, shopping malls, open-air markets — nowhere. This made me suspect that the entire business was a fiction designed to scare criminals.”
Grishkov nodded. “I would have had the same thought. So, what did the warden say?”
Vasilyev frowned. “Well, first he told me some history that didn’t really answer my question. He said there had been a period of about a year when it had proved impossible to carry out the punishment. He said this was because Saudi doctors began coming back to the Kingdom who had been trained in the US and UK, and refused to carry out the punishment. Everyone agreed that a doctor had to do it because simply cutting off a hand untreated would lead to death from shock and blood loss, and the punishment for theft was not intended to be fatal. He said that this impasse was finally resolved by the authorities wrapping the convicted person’s hand in cloth, pounding it with a sledgehammer, and then presenting the results to doctors for treatment.
Because of the damage, that treatment had to include removal of the hand.
Doctors quickly agreed that the intermediate step with the sledgehammer was unnecessary, and so removals were back on track.”
Grishkov frowned. “But that doesn’t explain why you weren’t seeing people who were missing hands.”
“Precisely,” Vasilyev nodded. “The warden went on to explain that in every case he had seen, the thief had been a foreigner. Though many Saudis are not rich, none are poor enough to have to take the risks involved with theft. The typical foreign thief had either reached the end of a work contract and stayed, or never been given their promised salary. So, after being caught and having their hand cut off they were then imprisoned for some period, and finally deported. So, the warden told me, if you want to see persons subjected to this punishment you need to visit Pakistan, Bangladesh, Yemen and the many other countries sending large numbers of foreign workers to the Kingdom.”
Grishkov shrugged. “It’s true that I have noticed many foreign workers in the short time we’ve been here.”
Vasilyev nodded. “Yes, but the proportion is far lower than it used to be.
Saudis are now in many positions that used to be manned exclusively by foreigners, and this is the result of a deliberate government program. The most expensive foreigners, Americans and Europeans, were the first to be replaced.”
Grishkov smiled. “I remember you telling me that you knew quite a few of them when you were here earlier.”
Vasilyev laughed. “They were an excellent source of inside information, as well as some amusement. One even drew cartoons!”
Grishkov frowned. “Dangerous, if they ever ended up in the hands of the authorities.”
Vasilyev shrugged. “They were not political, but you are correct that they could have easily led to expulsion. One that I thought summed up the viewpoint of many foreign workers quite well used characters from an American comic strip called ‘Peanuts’ without, I am sure, authorization.”