"prayers" and "international pressure", BosNewsLife monitored Thursday November 4.
Last month Brian Savio O’Connor, a Protestant and quest worker from the Indian state of Karnataka, was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment and 300 lashes on charges of "spreading Christianity" in the Islamic kingdom.
DEPORTED
However in an apparent dramatic turn of events, "O’Connor was unexpectedly and unconditionally deported from Saudi Arabia" on November 1 "without any reason being given," said The Voice of The Martyrs Canada (VOM-Canada), which has close ties to persecuted Christians. He was reportedly taken to the Riyadh airport late Monday night, allowed to embrace friends who had gathered to see him off, and then put on a plane to India.
O’Connor had been languishing in a Riyafh prison since March of this year, following his abduction and reported torture by Saudi religious police. A colleague of O’Connor, who was employed in the luggage department of Saudi Arabia’s national airline, saw the latter in prison and said that "the greying hair and beard make Brian look much older than his 36 years", AsiaNews reported.
During his detention, his father and sister passed away, added AsiaNews, a well informed Catholic news service , which was involved in an international campaign for O’Connor’s release.
POSTCARDS
BosNewsLife had also extensively covered O’Connor’s situation.
International press reports are believed to have contributed to the thousands of postcards for his release sent by Christians from around the world to his prison in Saudi Arabia.
Church sources said Saudi authorities were not pleased at the campaign in favor of a Christian jailed on religious grounds. In Saudi Arabia there is no real freedom for any religion other than Islam. Speaking to Compass Direct, a Christian news service, O’Connor said that during his seven months in prison however, he was able to lead twenty-one fellow prisoners to faith in Jesus Christ. "I was there for a purpose," he was quoted as saying.
"And on the flight home today, I shared with another man who prayed with me to receive Christ."
