Not What They Bargained For

When John Keene and Jim Maes went to Saudi Arabia in August of 1979, they thought their new construction jobs would bring them financial stability.

Six weeks later, Keene and Maes returned to New Mexico 30 pounds lighter and hundreds of dollars poorer.

Like hundreds of other Americans who worked in Saudi Arabia in the late 1970s, Keene and Maes returned with tales of torture and virtual enslavement by their employers.

In a case that will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on November 30, another worker, Scott Nelson, will seek redress for torture in Saudi Arabia that left him permanently disabled.

But neither Keene nor Maes' family--Maes died of isocyanate poisoning in 1984--has received any settlement, or indeed assistance, through the U.S. or Saudi governments.

They feel they have taken the issue as high as possible, with little result. In 1985, then-Vice President Bush wrote that their case was a "private contractual arrangement" and thus could not be pursued by the U.S. government.

"I really don't think that it's that private a contract," Keene says in response to the letter. "As a human being, my rights were violated."

'At Their Mercy'

Keene says that they had heard working overseas could be dangerous, so they first asked members of the State Department whether it was safe to work in Saudi Arabia. He says they were assured that working conditions in the Gulf nation were fine.

Soon afterward, Herbert K. Mallard, operations manager for the Saudi Industrial Company, hired Keene and Maes as foremen for an industrial port in Jubail.

The men went to work for Mohammed Al-Zahid, owner of the company and a close business partner of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.

Immediately after arriving, Keene says, they were given visitors' visas instead of work permits and were prohibited from leaving the country. Mail and phone calls were stopped, and paychecks never came, he says.

Soon, Keene says, their employers began making threats to their safety and lives, sometimes leaving them in the desert for days at a time without any food.

"We were totally at their mercy," said Keene. "If it weren't for some Somalians who had brought a little food we wouldn't have made it."

Although he and Maes were never beaten, Keene says he "feared for [his] life," and wanted to leave the country as soon as possible.

The two men escaped the watchful eye of their employers one day during work and went to the U.S. consulate in Dharan to complain about their situation, Keene says. But a marine at the door did not permit them to speak to an American official, explaining that he was "under orders."

Keene says that when he and Maes later told the State Department of the encounter, embassy officials denied that it had occurred.

A few days after they returned from the consulate, Maes drank some tea offered by Al-Zahid. According to Keene, Maes immediately became violently ill and from that time until his death his health steadily deteriorated.

Doctors who performed an autopsy concluded that he died from poisoning by isocyanates, chemicals commonly found at industrial sites.

Keene and Maes were only able to leave the country when they were arrested by the religious police and put on an airplane at gunpoint. No one ever explained to them why they were arrested or deported, Keene says.

"Mentally, I was a wreck when I came home," Keene says. "I checked myself into a hospital and tried to get my life back in order."

Upon their return home, Keene and Maes called Mallard, still employed by the Saudi Industrial Company, and told him their story.

"At first I didn't believe them," Mallard says. "But then I started getting calls from people who didn't know each other, complaining of the same thing."

Not long after Keene and Maes returned home, Al-Zahid closed the company, clearing out of the Boston office in the middle of the night. Mallard says Al-Zahid left behind about $6 million in bills.

"I was shocked," Mallard says. "I couldn't do anything for a week, and I had to deal with all the bills."

Mallard then began his 12-year battle to help Keene and Maes' family in their search for compensation and an official apology.

Since 1979, Mallard, who is financially independent, has spent all of his time pursuing this cause.

"I felt responsible," he says. "I decimated their lives when I sent them over there."

Keene, who still works as a construction foreman in New Mexico, said he has let Mallard represent him because he has no money to hire a full-time attorney.

"First I started with the Saudis, hoping they would apologize for what they had done," Mallard says. "But I still believed in the tooth fairy then."

Mallard began a flurry of letters to the district attorney in Suffolk County, the state attorney general, and his representatives. He then took his story to the Boston Globe and WBZ, both of which ran short pieces on it in 1981.

Shuttling back and forth between his Houston home and Washington, D.C., Mallard spoke to various State Department officials, but to no avail.

"In one week, three of the people who empathized with me were all transferred," he says.

Numerous congressional representatives have helped Mallard pursue his case. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Clayborne Pell (D-R.I.) and Larry Smith (D-Fla.) have all written letters to Saudi government officials about the case, but with similar results.

"We wrote to the Saudis on several occasions and got nothing substantive in reply," says George Pickart, a senior aide to Pell. "They are not trying to help resolve it."

Last month, during Senate confirmation hearings, Pell asked John Bookout, a candidate for ambassador to Saudi Arabia, whether he would take up Keene and Maes' case.

"I will urgently look into and vigorously protest all credible reports of torture," Bookout responded.

But Keene remains skeptical that their case will ever be won, saying the State Department has done "everything short of having the CIA come and rub me out."

"I want some type of policy so this does not happen to any other American who goes over there," Keene says. "But I don't think we will succeed."