A Scot who faces execution in Saudi Arabia appealed...

A Scot who faces execution in Saudi Arabia appealed against the sentence, claiming his televised confession was beaten out of him by officials.Sandy Mitchell is one of five Britons appealing convictions for running a bombing campaign against Westerners in the country.The 44-year-old Scot is accused of masterminding the campaign, which included a fatal attack on Christopher Rodway, a British engineer, in November 2000.In a statement, the five men described how they had been handcuffed to a door and made to stand without sleep for hours, as well as being beaten. They also allege that they were threatened with execution - and the execution of their families - if they did not co-operate.Following the men's confession on national television at the beginning of 2001, they were detained in solitary confinement for a year before being given sentences ranging from 12 years to the death penalty in a secret trial where they were denied legal representation.Stephen Jakobi, director of Fair Trials Abroad said: "All the evidence that we have is that this is standard operating procedure for serious crimes in Saudi Arabia."Mitchell, from Kirkintilloch, faces beheading if the appeal is unsuccessful, although Jakobi said that it was unlikely the Saudi authorities would actually execute a British citizen.The men are accused of carrying out the bombings as part of a turf war over the illicit alcohol trade.Mitchell's lawyers, based in Riyadh, claim that the continued bombings in the country after their arrest, add weight to suggestions that Islamic fundamentalists, rather than the British men, were responsible for the campaign. In June, British banker Simon Veness was killed by a car bomb similar to the one which killed Rodway.The lawyers have now written to the families involved suggesting that they could be released immediately, although this is said to be overly optimistic by lawyers in this country.Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Salah Al-Hejailan, the lawyer for the Britons said: "We will be pressing hard for their release, on the basis that they have not done it, they are innocent and they have extracted their confessions."The Foreign Office declined to comment on the case but said they remained in touch with the accused, their families and the lawyers involved.