Lock Him Up!

Furious Lackey in KSA
The office had recently hired a junior architect. He had probably been with us about five weeks when we heard that he had been arrested and locked up. His crime? Well, it seems that his previous sponsor had spotted this kid in the street, claimed that he had absconded, and called the cops. I don’t know the ins and outs of the story, but I do know that this young man was incarcerated in a Saudi jail until his current sponsor (Bongo) came along and used a bit of wasta. Problem was, Bongo was visiting his money in Switzerland at the time, and it was a week before he returned.

Once Bongo returned, the lad was released instantly. No charges were brought. No case to answer. It didn’t help my mood though. Apart from the time when Ken the American engineer was almost arrested for crashing his truck into a car that had run a red light (and Bongo was out of the country for that event also), it made me realise how totally vulnerable us foreigners were. Anything could happen, at any time, and you had no comeback whatsoever. The response from the police would be to lock you up, and talk to your sponsor when he made an appearance. Yakk.