Canada was urgently checking an unconfirmed report...

Canada was urgently checking an unconfirmed report that a Canadian businessman in Saudi Arabia accused of being involved in a fatal bombing was sentenced to death in a secret trial, officials said. They also said they had been informed that six other foreigners - five Britons and a Belgian - were convicted in October 2001 but had no further details.
The Canadian is William Sampson, who was arrested in December 2000 after a bomb blast in Riyadh which killed a Briton. Earlier in 2002, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Canada told Reuters that the trial had not yet begun.
"The unconfirmed information we have is that the trial was held in secret and even Mr Sampson's lawyer was not informed," Canadian foreign ministry spokesman Patrick Riel told Reuters.
Saudi officials say Sampson tried to commit suicide and has refused to cooperate with authorities.
They blame the blasts on rival gangs of Western bootleggers who make a living evading the Muslim kingdom's strict ban on alcohol.
If the report of the secret trial is true, it will harm the already strained relations between Ottawa and Riyadh over Sampson.
Riel said Foreign Minister Bill Graham had summoned the Saudi ambassador to press him on the report and had also spoken to him by telephone.
"Minister Graham told the ambassador that if such actions were true, then they were contrary to all international norms of due process and totally unacceptable to Canadians," Riel said.