The Saudi lawyer of a Canadian accused of involvement...

The Saudi lawyer of a Canadian accused of involvement in a fatal bombing denied reports that his client had been sentenced to death in a secret trial in the Muslim kingdom.
"The legal trial with the presence of attorneys has not started and there has not been any formal announcement of any sentences," Salah al-Hejailan told Reuters.
"These are premature statements," said Hejailan, denying that he or his court-appointed colleagues were the source of the reports about the death sentence.
A Canadian Foreign Ministry spokesman earlier said Canada was urgently checking reports that said the Canadian businessman, William Sampson, had been sentenced to death and subsequently lost two appeals. He said the ministry had summoned the Saudi ambassador over the reports.
Sampson was arrested in December 2000 after a bomb blast in Riyadh which killed a Briton. Canadian officials said they had been informed that six other foreigners - five Britons and a Belgian - had also been convicted in October 2001, but they had no further details of the sentences.
Hejailan said: "What has taken place is the hearing for the confirmation of confessions. The trial has to be announced to the detainee and the counsel. The concept of secret trials does not exist in this country."
Hejailan said he and his colleagues were soon to start their defence of Sampson and the five Britons and that he expected the trial to last about two months. He said another law firm represented the Belgian.
Saudi officials blame the blast and other similar explosions on rival gangs of Western bootleggers who make a living evading the conservative Muslim kingdom's strict ban on alcohol.