Saudi Academic sentenced for five year imprisonment

A court in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh, sentenced yesterday to five year imprisonment the Islamists Saudi Academic, Saed Bin Zaer, after he was found guilty of "provoking sedition and provoking to oppose the rulers."

The son of the academic, Abdullah Bin Zaer, who attended the trial with a small number of his father's relatives and representatives for the human rights organization said that his father will ask for "appeal" of the sentence. He added following the trial session which lasted for two months "the verdict was announced while no lawyer was present there."

The representative of the " Saudi society for human rights " who attended the trial, Mufleh al-Qahtani, said that the trial was made according to "enforced rules." The Saudi ministry of the interior announced in April that Bin Zaer ( 54 year old) was arrested because of statements to al-Jazeera TV in which he compared between the attacks carried out by Osama Bin Laden on the western civilians to the attacks launched by the Americans against Iraqi civilians and the Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians.

The son of Zaer said "the judge did not get into details of press statements made by my father." He said that the five year imprisonment is a punishment for him because he appeared on al-Jazeera TV and talked in one of the mosques."