A Perth family is calling on the Gillard government for help in bringing home two brothers from Saudi Arabia.
One is in prison facing charges of terrorism. The other is in hiding.
Their family says the men, both Australian citizens, are innocent and should be allowed to return home.
Junaid Muhammed Thorne is too frightened to reveal his whereabouts, as he hides somewhere in Saudi Arabia, but he agreed to speak to NITV News via Skype.
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"Any checkpoint or any police officer that stops me and asks for my identity card ...I would be arrested straight away," he said.
His mother and aunty in Perth are deeply concerned for his safety.
"My son contacted me and he said he feared for his safety. He thought they were trying to arrest him again and he didn't want to go back to prison and he just wants to come home, " said his mother, who requested her identity to be concealed.
Older brother Shayden Jamil Thorne is being held in Riyadh's highest security jail on terrorism charges, alongside al-Qaeda suspects. Conditions are similar to other Saudi prisons, where overcrowding is the norm.
The Thorne family says Shayden is innocent and Junaid was detained for protesting about his brother's imprisonment.
"I want them to clear his name and to bring him home. All the evidence they got against him was extracted through torture. They deprived him of sleep, they continuously had him under bright lights," the woman said.
DFAT confirmed the arrest of 25-year-old Australian man from Western Australia in Saudi Arabia.
"The man is on trial for alleged terrorism-related offences and is detained in a prison outside Riyadh, Saudi Arabia," a spokesperson for the a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told NITV News in a statement.
"Consular officials from the Australian Embassy in Riyadh have been providing consular assistance to the man since his arrest in November 2011," the statement said.
According to correspondence between the family and the Australian Consulate in Riyadh, consular staff visited Shayden Jamil Thorne in prison on January 9 this year.
Officials expressed their concerns that he had been held for more than a year without trial. That trial is now underway as he remains behind bars.
Then on January 13, consular staff received a phone call from his younger brother Junaid Muhammed Thorne.
He had been in jail for almost a month following a demonstration at his local mosque over the treatment of political prisoners.
He was subsequently released two months' later without charge.
Saudi authorities have yet to comment.
