Major General Salah al-Jutaili, Director of the Legal Department at the Presidency of State Security
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
[PHOTO NOT AVAILABLE. IF YOU HAVE PHOTOS AVAILABLE, PLEASE EMAIL saudiinfo@dawnmena.org]:
Al-Jutaili comes from Onaizah in the al-Qassim Province, in the central region of Najd in Saudi Arabia.
As head of the legal department, Maj. Gen. Salah al-Jutaili oversees negotiations, interrogations, house search, and legal activity within the State Security. The State Security has been responsible for unjust arrests, interrogations, mistreatment inside their prisons, and handling visits, calls, interrogations and food. In addition, Al-Jutaili was personally involved in trying to deter Loujain Alhathloul from continuing her peaceful activism, which is protected by international human rights law. He summoned her to his office about a week before her arrest on approximately May 8, 2018. He threatened her and verbally abused her.
According to eyewitnesses, in August 2019, Major General Salah al-Jutaili personally led a State Security effort to try to force Alhathloul to record a video in which she would deny torture and mistreatment. Al-Jutaili offered to release Alhathloul, who had been detained for more than a year at that point, if she said on camera that she had not been tortured. She refused and remained in prison. In January 2020, Major General al-Jutaili confiscated two letters from Alhathloul's family in which Alhathloul complained about the lack of due process and her mistreatment.
According to a former colleague of al-Jutalil, he oversees Alhathloul's case, as well as the files of other notable detainees, including Salman Alodah, a Muslim scholar accused, among other things, of calling for reconciliation with Qatar and "expressing cynicism about the government's achievements."
See cases: Loujain Alhathloul, Salman Alodah
DAWN requested a response from Major General al-Jutaili, by writing to the Saudi authorities on December 9, but no response was received by the time of publication.
