Saudi judiciary fixes sentences of three reformers

The Saudi judiciary at the cassation level approved the imprisonment sentences issued against three reformers accused of wanting to establish a constitutional monarchy in the country.

One of the defendant lawyers, Ali al-Ghuzami, said that the chairman of the general court in Riyadh, Sheikh Suleiman al-Muhanna, notified the defendant commission that the court of cassation approved the sentences issued by the general court in May 2004 against the three reformers.

Al-Ghuzami, the legal advisor for two of the convicted men said he will appeal the case in the supreme judiciary council, the highest authority in the country whose sentences are final.

Al-Ghuzami deplored this measure and appealed to the political leadership to interfere to lift what he called repression inflected on his clients, and to release them. The three men are members of the group of 12 activists detained on March 16, 2004.

In May 2004, the court issued imprisonment sentences between one to nine years against Ali al-Dumeini, six years against Matrouk al-Faleh and seven years imprisonment against Ali Abdullah al-Hamid.

The three men were accused of calling for a "constitutional monarchy and using western idioms in their demand to introduce political changes in the Kingdom," according to the attorney general representatives.

Later, six of them were released after they had vowed to abstain from launching open calls for reforms. Other three were released by the end of March this year.

The three men were among a group of 116 persons who filed a petition in December 2003 to Saudi officials calling for a comprehensive constitutional reforms including vast political participation by citizens through an elected parliament that recognized citizens political, cultural, economic and social rights, and to seperate and give independence to the three distinctive authorities in the kingdom.