Seventy-four-year-old cancer survivor Karl Andree, who has resided in Saudi Arabia for over 25 years, is facing 350 lashes by the Saudi government after he was caught making homemade wine. Reports confirm that Mr. Andree was arrested in the port city of Jidda in August 2014 after authorities discovered wine in his car.

Saudi Arabia, which routinely applies Sharia law and is infamous for a justice system that frequently carries out cruel and inhuman punishment, strictly forbids alcohol, reports The New York Times.

The sentence is especially cruel considering Mr. Andree “has already served 12 months in Jeddah’s brutal Briman Prison, which has a reputation for torture and inhuman conditions,” according to The Telegraph.

Mr. Andree’s family fears he will not survive the lashings.

Elderly grandfather facing 350 lashes by Saudi government

“He’s had cancer three times,” said Mr. Andree’s son, Simon Andree told BBC Radio 4. “He suffers from severe asthma. He’s an old, frail man, and I just fear that this lashing sentence is a death sentence for him.”

The U.S.’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia is highly controversial and largely frowned by many due to the fact that the world’s largest oil producer has an overly cruel justice system that’s long been criticized by human rights groups, “which have accused the country of holding unfair trials and dispensing disproportionate sentences, including the execution of juvenile offenders.”

The following crimes are punishable by death in Saudi Arabia, normally by beheading in a public square: Drug dealing, arms smuggling, murder and other violent crimes, the NYT reports. Their justice system administers flogging for crimes including “meeting members of the opposite sex who are not close relatives; adultery; driving, if you are a woman; and homosexuality.”

While the United States has so far failed to intervene with the cruel punishment Mr. Andree is facing, Britain has stepped forward, announcing its decision to cancel a multi-million dollar prisons contract with the Saudi Arabian government in protest of the flogging, according to The Telegraph.

Public beheadings not uncommon in Saudi Arabia

Britain’s David Cameron announced that they “will not be proceeding with a bid to sell the Ministry of Justice’s expertise to the prison service in Saudi Arabia,” – highlighting the two governments’ increasingly strained relationship. Cameron also penned a letter to the Saudis protesting plans to lash Mr. Andree.

Mr. Andree’s family is relieved by Cameron’s intervention, which they have been requesting for some time now. The Andree family is especially concerned as Mr. Andree’s wife has Alzheimer’s and is dying.

“Our father has given 25 years of his working life to Saudi Arabia, and this is how he is treated. Until his arrest, he has always been happy working there and felt safe,” Simon Andree told the media, adding that his wife is at home dying in the UK.

“He now needs medical care for his cancer and Asthma, and there is no doubt in our mind that 350 lashes will kill him,” they said.

Why the U.S. refuses to abandon its twisted partnership with the Saudis

Despite their pattern of carrying out cruel and unusual punishment, Saudi Arabia has been a close ally of the United States since 1945 “when President Franklin D. Roosevelt huddled with King Abdulaziz for five awkward hours on a U.S. warship, the United States has had uncomfortably intimate relations with Saudi Arabia,” Politico Magazine reports.

“Seventy years later, the two countries are trapped in a loveless marriage. No country buys more U.S. weapons than the autocratic, oil-rich Persian Gulf monarchy, and no country—with its obscurantist interpretation of Islam, medieval punishments and harsh treatment of women—makes for a more embarrassing U.S. ally.”

Additional sources:

NYtimes.com

Politico.com

Telegraph.co.uk