By Gulf Correspondent Frank Gardner:

Nurses Deborah Parry and Lucille McLaughlan have returned to Britain after being pardoned by King Fahd but both foreigners and Saudis alike believe the two women would never have been released had they not been from a Western country.

Speaking to the BBC from Saudi Arabia on condition of anonymity, foreigners in Saudi Arabia have expressed outrage at what they see as the unjustly lenient treatment of the two pardoned British nurses.

A Pakistani expatriate said he believed they owed their new-found freedom to the fact that they were white, Western and British.

He said if they had been from an Asian country, they would not have been allowed a lawyer at their trial and would doubtless have been executed by now.

The Saudi Government has denied that the nurses were released due to any outside pressure.

The Saudi Ambassador to London, Doctor Ghazi Algosaibi has said that their jail sentences were commuted on humanitarian grounds following a petition to the King by the nurses' relatives.

But privately many Saudis believe that the visit to Saudi Arabia last month by the British Prime Minister, played a large part in their early release.

They say that Tony Blair is held in high esteem by the Saudi Royal Family particularly following his role in securing the Northern Ireland peace deal.

Saudi nationals as well as many of the estimated six million expatriates in the country, are convinced that preferential treatment was shown to the two Britons due to the huge trading relationship between the two countries.
 

Back to top | BBC News Home | BBC Homepage	©