More hearings on kidnappings of Americans

The House Government Reform Committee will hold hearings this week to determine if American lobbying firms hired by Saudi Arabia must surrender documentation sought by the panel pertaining to a series of child abduction cases.

The committee, led by Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., has spent a year investigating cases in which American children have been abducted from the United States and taken to Saudi Arabia against their will by Saudi parents. As a part of its probe, the panel has issued subpoenas to obtain documentation from Riyadh that could shed light on the cases.

The Saudi government, however, has so far refused to hand over any pertinent documentation and has instructed its three American public relations firms – Qorvis Communications, Patton Boggs and the Gallagher Group – to reject the panel's subpoenas, claiming diplomatic immunity.

Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., says his country is exempt from the subpoenas under the terms of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, a United-Nations-sponsored charter passed in 1961 that Bandar says protects the lobbyists' records.

But in a Nov. 21 letter to Bandar, Burton dismissed that claim, adding he was "extremely troubled" by the kingdom's refusal and vowing to find some way to force Riyadh or its U.S public relations firms to produce the documents.

"I am extremely troubled that you have decided to raise these highly questionable legal privileges in response to the committee's subpoena," Burton wrote. "In appears that you are raising a privilege that has never been raised before in this context to prevent the Congress and the American public from learning what your lobbyists and public-relations agents were doing to respond to these kidnapping cases."

Burton went on to say if his subpoenas went ignored, the panel would "consider appropriate action to enforce" them and "obtain the requested information."

Wednesday's hearing is a continuation of a year-long effort by the committee to get to the bottom of several cases involving Saudi parents who – often in violation of U.S. law – have taken their children away from American spouses and secreted them to Saudi Arabia.

"The committee recently issued subpoenas to three U.S. firms … working on the abduction issue for the Saudis in order to obtain documents related to their work for the Saudi government," said a panel statement on Saturday. "Rather than comply with the subpoenas, however, all three firms refused to produce the documents, claiming that they were 'inviolable' under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations."

Blain Rethmeier, a committee spokesman, said the panel will examine the "validity" of Saudi claims. He said members of the lobbying firms have been subpoenaed to testify at the Dec. 4 hearing, along with a noted Vienna Convention expert, Dr. Eileen Denza, of London.

Rethmeier said representatives from the departments of Justice and State have been invited to appear to "give testimony and answer questions."

Also scheduled to appear at the hearing are Margaret McClain and Pat Roush, both of whose daughters have been kidnapped and taken to Saudi Arabia.

As WorldNetDaily has previously reported, Roush's daughters – Alia and Aisha al-Gheshayan – were kidnapped from her care in a Chicago suburb in 1986, in defiance of a U.S. court order, by their father, Khalid al-Gheshayan, when they were 7 and 3, respectively.

At the panel's hearings in June and October, government officials, Saudi public-relations representatives, and American men and women who have had children abducted provided often-emotional testimony.

Young women who had been held captive by Saudi parents but managed to escape also testified at the hearings, telling panel members that they were often beaten, locked up and sexually abused by Saudi fathers and their relatives.

Saudi officials claim they are working hard to resolve the kidnapping cases, but Burton, Roush and others remain skeptical.

"This hearing, which concerns the Saudi Embassy claim of privilege in instructing its lobbyists and public-relations specialists to not turn over subpoenaed documents to [Burton's] committee concerning abducted American citizens, is of the utmost importance in helping to reveal the truth about the role of these firms who do the bidding for the Saudi government," Roush told WorldNetDaily.

"If [the Saudi government has] nothing to hide and is so interested in assisting the committee in resolving these cases as [they have indicated], why not just allow the committee to review the documents?" she said. "This is all part of the continual dissemination of factual misrepresentations to members of Congress and the media by the Saudi officials and their PR people."

Roush is writing a book about her ordeal for WND Books, the book publishing arm of WorldNetDaily.

During earlier hearings, panel members and witnesses alike intimated that the Saudi government was complicit in at least keeping the American children in the country. Documentation provided by witnesses suggested some high-ranking Saudi officials were aware American kids had been illegally kidnapped from the United States and taken to the kingdom.

State Department officials who appeared before the committee refused to indicate whether Riyadh had a role in the kidnappings.

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