E/CN.4/1996/35/Add.1 page 110 passport and luggage with a large sum of money were seized and he was placed in detention. Several days later, he was taken for interrogation and asked for his passport. When he replied that it had already been confiscated, he was allegedly beaten unconscious. He spent several months in Priman prison, where he was allegedly subjected to further beatings. He was released more than two months after being found innocent by a tribunal. 584. By the same letter the Special Rapporteur reminded the Government of information transmitted on 3 June 1994 concerning the alleged ill-treatment of Iraqi refugees, regarding which no reply had been received. On 27 October 1995 the Government replied that the authorities at the national and local levels had treated the refugees in the same way as Saudi citizens and in some cases had accorded them special privileges to help them to maintain their traditions and preserve their identity. The refugees were treated in accordance with customary international law and the Geneva Conventions concerning the law of war, when they had been considered prisoners of war. After they were recognized as refugees, the Government had treated them according to international instruments concerning refugees or Saudi national law, consisting in the Islamic Shari’a. Initially, there were a few incidents involving infringements by some soldiers with little or no experience of refugee problems, but persons responsible for those infringements were invariably punished in accordance with Islamic Shari’a, as a result of which the situation at the camps had been brought under control. Refugees suspected of committing offences were investigated under the normal procedures in force in the country, in accordance with the Islamic Shari’a. Contrary to allegations, no refugees had died as a result of the investigation methods applied. Corporal punishment might have been required under the terms of legal judgements handed down against law-breakers. However, the authorities had endeavoured to restrict and even avoid its application to the refugees in light of their particular status and the penalty had been commuted and was not used against any of the refugees. 585. In its reply, the Government also mentioned several individual cases transmitted by the Special Rapporteur - those of Hadi Nasi Hussein, Abbad Ali Mahawi, Muhammad Hassan, Ali Sabah Ward, Basim Youssuf Ibrahim al-Shaimari and Asaad Ali Hussein al-Bashama. With the exception of Ali Sabah, they had not complained of ill-treatment to the authorities concerned or to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Urgent appeals 586. The Special Rapporteur sent three urgent appeals on behalf of the persons mentioned in the following paragraphs, all of whom had reportedly been sentenced to flogging. The dates on which the appeals were sent are mentioned in brackets at the end of each summary. 587. Mohammed ’Ali al-Sayyid, an Egyptian national, was reportedly sentenced to a prison term of seven years and 4,000 lashes after being convicted of theft. He was allegedly removed with his legs shackled once every two weeks from al-Buraida prison in al-Qaseem province and taken to the marketplace, where he would receive from a police official 50 lashes with a bamboo cane of about one metre in length and one half centimetre in diameter. As a result of