How Saudi Aramco Exec Spent Week in Indian Jail for Possessing Satellite Phone

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

A senior executive at Saudi Aramco spent almost a week in an Indian jail over the summer after he was arrested for having a satellite phone while on a yoga holiday near the country’s border with China.

Fergus MacLeod, head of investor relations at the world’s largest oil exporter, said he was arrested on July 12 at his hotel in the Valley of Flowers National Park in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand.

The 62-year-old was held in prison in the town of Chamoli until July 18, a Financial Times report said.

Authorities detained the British executive after picking up the coordinates of the phone, which MacLeod says he turned on and off at his hotel but did not use while on the holiday with friends, some of whom were colleagues from Saudi Aramco.

It is illegal for foreign nationals to possess and operate satellite phones in India without government permission. The bans came after satellite phones, which take signals from satellites rather than the terrestrial towers that cellphones use, were used by terrorists during the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

MacLeod, who has led investor relations at Saudi Aramco since 2017, told the Financial Times that he was unaware of the ban and had passed through two Indian airports, carrying the phone openly, without being stopped by staff.

The disputed 3,500km border between India and China has long been a source of tension and the region is closely monitored by Indian security forces, particularly since deadly border clashes two years ago.

Narendra Singh Rawat, a police officer in Chamoli, confirmed that MacLeod had been arrested. The executive had carried the phone “by mistake”, Rawat said.

MacLeod said he bought the device legally in the UK in 2017 for personal use and took it with him when travelling in the desert in Saudi Arabia in case of emergency in remote areas with poor mobile phone signal. One of the few foreigners to reach the upper ranks of Saudi Aramco, MacLeod said that while he was treated relatively well during his almost week-long detention, prison authorities ignored his daily requests to contact his lawyer, the British High Commission and his family.