Fridae

An openly gay Saudi Arabian diplomat in Los Angeles who requested asylum in late August said he had received death threats since making it public on Saturday that he had asked to be allowed to stay in the United States.

According to media reports, the diplomat, who gave his name as Ali Ahmad Asseri, is said to have sent an e-mail to news organisations saying that he has informed the US Department of Homeland Security officials that Saudi officials have refused to renew his diplomatic passport and had effectively terminated his job after discovering he was gay and was close friends with a Jewish woman. He was the first secretary of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles.

The story was first broken on Saturday by NBC which reported: "In a recent letter that he posted on a Saudi website, Asseri angrily criticized his country’s 'backwardness' as well as the role of 'militant imams' in Saudi society who have 'defaced the tolerance of Islam.' Perhaps most provocatively of all, he has threatened to expose what he describes as politically embarrassing information about members of the Saudi royal family living in luxury in the US.

Additionally, Asseri's religious views could also put him at risk in Saudi Arabia, as he had acknowledged in the e-mail that he is not a practicing Muslim, although he said he believes in God.

“My life is in a great danger here,” Mr. Asseri wrote in the letter, “and if I go back to Saudi Arabia, they will kill me openly in broad daylight. I want my voice to be heard, and I want them to know that I am not alone.”

The New York Times reports that Asseri’s lawyer, Ally Bolour, said Saudi officials had terminated his position with the consulate and refused to renew his diplomatic passport. The report however also quoted Nail al-Jubeir, a spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington, as saying that Asseri’s diplomatic passport has not been renewed as his had completed his tour of duty in Los Angeles and has been transferred to the foreign ministry in Riyadh.

Asseri is currently believed to be in hiding.

In Saudi Arabia, homosexual acts are punishable by execution. However, there have been no "gay" executions reported in the strict Muslim country since 2002 when three men from Abha were beheaded.