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MADINA – The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) will not intervene in the controversial case of a family seeking a man to be sentenced to a punishment of paralysis because he had caused the paralysis of their son with a knife in a fight two years ago.

Dr. Mefleh Bin Rubaiaan Al-Qahtani, Chairman of the NSHR, said the case is being studied, but any possible action will only be taken once the Saudi courts have dealt with the matter.

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RIYADH – The Appeals Court has approved the Shariah decision issued by the General Court here sentencing a gang of seven Arabs, who specialized in theft and pickpocketing, to a total of 43 years behind bars and 4,320 lashes of the whip besides deportation from the country after completion of their prison sentences.

Riyadh Police said on Thursday that after studying a number of reports of theft at several police stations, they were able to detect a crime pattern which led them to arrest an Arab expatriate who was residing in the Kingdom illegally.

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JEDDAH – A married woman has been sentenced to three years prison and 500 lashes of the whip for contracting “misyar” marriage in order to con a suitor out of money. The woman, a foreign resident in the Kingdom, denied that she had been married to two persons simultaneously and said she had only agreed to a misyar marriage in order to take the dowry money. A District Court verdict of engaging in an illegal relationship and swindling was upheld by the Appeals Court. The ruling of 500 lashes will be carried out at intervals. – Okaz/SG

JEDDAH – The General Court in Jeddah has thrown out compensation claims for millions of riyals brought by a Saudi woman who suffered mosquito bites during her stay in a hotel.

The guest initially complained to hotel management over a rash she had developed which the hotel doctor later identified as resulting from mosquito bites, but she rejected the subsequent offer of a room upgrade in exchange for dropping her threats of a lawsuit.

Instead, she hired a lawyer to approach the court and seek millions of riyals in compensation from the hotel for the “physical and psychological harm she suffered because of the mosquito bites”.

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MAKKAH – The Appeals Court in Makkah has overturned the conviction of a man accused by his mother-in-law of “harassing” two of her daughters and “damaging their reputations” by publishing photographs of them on the internet site Facebook.
The 32-year-old man had been sentenced to three months in prison and 45 lashes of the whip by the District Court in Makkah following a 75-day investigation conducted by the Commission for Investigation and Prosecution based on the mother-in-law’s complaint, but the Appeals Court overruled the sentence based on evidence brought by the defendant’s lawyer, Ibrahim Zamzami.
“The whole case was fabricated, and based on the evidence of printed images without any investigation conducted into the original online source of those images,” Zamzami said. “These cases involving technology should be looked into by specialist authorities and not simply rely on printed paper evidence.” – Okaz/SG

JEDDAH – The lawyer representing Mazen Abdul Jawad, whose sentence of five years in prison and 1,000 lashes of the whip for revealing on television intimate details of his sexual exploits was upheld by the Appeals Court on Monday, has said that despite the ruling he remains convinced that “an annulment of the sentence is only a matter of time”.
“We got what we wanted in the text of the sentence which includes the line ‘Should new evidence appear through private action taken up with the Ministry of Culture and Information then a review should be conducted based on Article 206 Paragraph 5 of penal law procedures’,” said lawyer Solaiman Al-Jumai’i.
The lawyer issued a press statement Tuesday in which he said he and his client “intend to wait on Ministry of Culture investigations”. “We have presented to the ministry with proof of LBC’s distorting and dubbing and reediting of footage, and its contravening of Ministry of Culture regulations, and we have received assurance in a response from the ministry that it will take pertinent measures,” the statement said.
The Appeals Court upheld on Monday the District Court ruling sentencing Mazen Abdul Jawad to five years in prison and 1,000 lashes, and the convictions of three of Abdul Jawad’s companions who also took part in the LBC program the Bold Red Line broadcast in August last year and were given two years’ prison and 300 lashes each.
The rulings, first made four months ago, stated that the lashes of the whip be carried out at intervals, and further included the confiscation of Abdul Jawad’s car, his mobile telephone, and a bar on traveling abroad and on appearing in any form of media for a period of five years following the completion of his sentence.
Abdul Jawad is also obliged to sign a written pledge to refrain from similar offenses and to have sessions with an “advisory committee”, a psychiatrist and a social worker.
A fourth person, a cameraman from Jeddah Television Center, had been given a sentence not open to appeal of three months in prison and 70 lashes along with a subsequent two-year travel ban, while a fourth person who acted as a go-between between Abdul Jawad and LBC was sentenced to two months’ prison, a term he had completed by the time the court gave its ruling. – Okaz/SG

JEDDAH: The Appeals Court Monday ratified the verdict issued by the summary court in Jeddah against the Saudi sex braggart, Mazen Abdul Jawad, and three of his friends.

The summary court sentenced Abdul Jawad to five years in prison, 1,000 lashes and a travel ban during his imprisonment. It has also seized his car and mobile phone.

Abdul Jawads three friends were sentenced to two years in jail and 300 lashes. The Appeals Court delivered its verdict after the four challenged the ruling.

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JEDDAH: A final decision has not yet been made in the case of the mastermind of the Sawa scam, Abdul Aziz Al-Jihani, according to his legal representative.

I learned from the Jeddah Summary Court on Wednesday that the Appeals Court did not make its final decision on the appeal against the summary courts 20-year sentence, Hisham Hanbouli told Arab News, denying reports that the appeal had been rejected by the higher court.

More than 40,000 investors were cheated out of more than SR1 billion relating to Sawa telephone cards about three years ago. Thirty-three other accomplices were handed punishments between three months and five years.

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JEDDAH – The Appeals Court in Jeddah has upheld the convictions of three Egyptians and two Saudis for “drug smuggling and spreading vice”. The five, who are all between the ages of 30 and 40, were sentenced to between two and seven years in prison and 400 and 700 lashes of the whip. A sum of 14,000 riyals was withheld from the convicted five at the time of their arrest, along with a computer containing pornographic images and mobile telephones used to contact clients. – Okaz/SG

JEDDAH – An Appeals Court has upheld the verdict of the Jeddah District Court sentencing a Senegalese man to seven years in prison and 1,000 lashes of the whip for conning clients into believing he could use magic powers to multiply their money. A source at the hearing – the date of which was not stated – told Okaz newspaper Wednesday that a Saudi man presented the defendant with 1,000 riyals and was subsequently given 5,000. On the following occasion when he gave 10,000 riyals, the Senegalese man returned to him with 50,000. The defendant reportedly claimed to be able to turn money into greater sums via Quranic recitation and also led clients to believe he could turn other currencies into dollars. When the Saudi client approached him a third time with five million riyals seeking a return of 20 million, the defendant took the money and disappeared. After being alerted to the situation, police located the man in a south Jeddah district and made the arrest. The convicted man will be deported upon completing his sentence and his name placed on the list of persons barred entry to the Kingdom, with the judge describing him as “dangerous”. – SG