Arab News, Riyadh/Jeddah/Dhahran, 3 August 2002

2,280 lashes and jail for two car thieves

By Saqr Al-Amri
Arab News Staff

JEDDAH, 3 August - A Tabuk summary court has sentenced a habitual car thief to seven years in jail and 1,680 lashes after charges against him were proved beyond doubt. His accomplice, a policeman, received four years and 600 lashes.

Isa Abdullah Al-Ghayth, judge at the summary court told Arab News that "the evidences proved conclusively that the first accused stole 36 cars. The period of punishment will be from the date of his detention. The 1,680 lashes will be meted out in 42 installments with an interval of seven days between two lashing sessions."

The second accused had helped him in 14 thefts. He will be lashed 15 times with 40 strokes each time with an interval of seven days between two bouts of lashes.

The traffic patrol in Tabuk had caught the pair red-handed while driving away a stolen car after having made some alterations. The car was missing for some time and the police were on the lookout for it. On seeing the patrol the suspects sped away but they were stopped and arrested after a long chase.

The first accused denied at the time of inquiry that he had stolen the car and that he was only traveling with the other man. On the contrary, the second accused confessed his involvement with the first accused in the theft of 14 cars from various parts of the city.

The judge explained that the punishments to the two varied because of the difference in the number and degree of crimes committed by each. The first convict refused to repent though he had confessed his offenses earlier, the judge said.

The public prosecutor demanded that the court give deterrent punishments, particularly to the second accused because he was a policeman.

Arab News, Riyadh/Jeddah/Dhahran, 4 August 2002

Brothel keeper gets 15-year jail, 5,000 lashes

By a Staff Writer

RIYADH, 4 August - A court has sentenced a foreign woman to 15 years in jail and 5,000 lashes for running a prostitution ring in Madinah, Al-Eqtisadiah reported yesterday.

The same court sentenced six other women and four men to prison terms ranging between five and 10 years and 1,000 to 3,000 lashes each, after they were caught by the religious police, Al-Eqtisadiah daily said.

The court also ordered the brothel where the men and women, Arabs and Africans, were arrested to be demolished and the land confiscated, while its Saudi owners will be rebuked in public.

According to the ruling, the lashes will be administered over several years.

Arab News, Riyadh/Jeddah/Dhahran, 5 August 2002

Jail and lashes for bestial teenager

By Saqr Al-Amri
Arab News Staff

JEDDAH, 5 August - A court in northern Saudi Arabia has sentenced a Nigerian teenager to six months in jail and 240 lashes for having sex with a camel.

Dr. Eisa Abdullah Al-Ghaith, a judge at a summary court in Tabuk, told Arab News that the court found the 17-year-old boy guilty of "having tried to have sexual relations with a camel."

But the camel's owner said the young Nigerian "got into his farm and had sex" with the dromedary. The teenager was arrested by police while he was trying to have sex with one of the camels.

The teenager confessed before the court that he intended to have sex with the camel. Ghaith said the lashes will be administered in six installments of 40 lashes each with an interval of seven days.

Yahoo! News/Reuters, 11 August 2002

Saudi teens flogged for harassing women

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has flogged 12 teenage boys in public after charging them with harassing women at a park designated for families in the conservative Muslim kingdom, according to the al-Eqtisadiah newspaper.

On Sunday it said the youths were given 15 lashes each inside the park for "flirting and bothering families" after scaling the walls of the enclosure in the resort city of Taif.

Saudi Arabia's strict implementation of Islamic sharia law bans unrelated men and women from mixing before marriage. Women are also required to cover up in public.

Punishment in the kingdom includes beheading for murder, rape and drug smuggling, stoning for adultery and flogging for relatively minor crimes including alcohol consumption.