METRO AIRPORT (WXYZ) — A man from Melvindale is finally free after spending more than a month in a Saudi Arabian prison.
63-year-old Mohamad Salem of Melvindale was taken into custody last month while in Saudi Arabia for a religious pilgrimage with his sons.
“Mohamad was imprisoned for over 30 days. Every day that went by, they had less hope,” said Salem's Dearborn-based attorney Abdallah Moughni.
For weeks Moughni has been on the phone nonstop, trying desperately to secure the release of his client, who is a dual citizen of both the US and Yemen.
“We had no way to find out if they were charging him, what the evidence was against him, if they had any reports,” Moughni said. "When you hear these stories of people in similar situations they don't get out, and when they do they’re imprisoned for a very long time. Everything looked very bleak.”
Moughni says Salem was making a religious pilgrimage to Mecca with his sons. While there, there was an issue in a line, and Salem made a comment that Saudi officials overheard.
“He was livid, he was furious, and out of rage, he said 'if not for Mecca and Medina, we would burn this country to the ground," Moughni said. "Two men arrested him and grabbed him. Turned out they were Saudi Arabian officials.”
With no information, Moughni turned to the US government and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib for help.
"What the challenge is really a lack of transparency and understanding the process there versus here,” Rep. Tlaib said.
Tlaib says she quickly got the US State Department involved, along with the embassy to be able to communicate with Salem, who his attorney says is diabetic.
“One of the things that was really important to myself and the family was making sure they had his medical records, that they understood his condition,” Tlaib said.
But during his detainment, Salem was moved to a higher security prison. Moughni says things began changing, once local media picked up his story.
"He said he was being treated very poorly in that prison up until the media started to spread this story," Moughni said. "Once the Saudi’s started to hear the Americans were hearing about this story and taking it serious, he got completely different treatment.”
Now finally after weeks of talks, Salem was suddenly released, getting a flight back to Washington D.C. before boarding a final flight home to Detroit, scheduled to arrive Thursday morning.
“It was a month. A month for us to finally see him come home to his family,” Tlaib said.
“It took them a month to determine he was not a threat," Moughni said. "But eventually they did and now he is back on American soil and we couldn't be any happier.”
