RIYADH, 6 October 2005 — There is a strong case against the four young men indicted for sexually harassing two Saudi girls in the capital last week and any Shariah court in the Kingdom could try them, a legal expert told Arab News yesterday. This could be done, according to the expert, without the girls’ presence in court.
He said that the four young men had already been indicted and pointed out that the video clip of them harassing the girls is strong evidence and would be submitted in court to prove their crime.
A source at the Main Court in Riyadh denied reports published in a Saudi newspaper that the trial of the four young men took place yesterday. He said that it would take time for the case to be transferred from the General Commission for Investigation and Prosecution to the Main Court.
“These procedures take time and the court will not become involved until the investigations have been completed,” he explained. He called upon all judges and sheikhs not to prejudge the defendants based on what has been published in the media.
The four young men earlier confessed both to the police and later to the Public Prosecutor that they sexually harassed two Saudi girls walking near a pedestrian bridge in Riyadh’s Al-Nahda District.
Three of the men are Saudi, aged between 20 and 26, and the fourth, a Palestinian aged 24, who filmed them with his mobile camera as they harassed the girls.
They confessed to having deliberately circulated the video clip on the Internet and by Bluetooth technology. The General Commission for Investigation and Prosecution closed the four young men’s file on Sunday after it completed its investigations.
The four young men were arrested after police received orders from the governor of Riyadh, Prince Salman, to catch them as quickly as possible.
The video clip caused a degree of shock, anger and outrage which the Kingdom has rarely experienced. The clip showed the young men holding the two girls, touching their private parts and also verbally abusing them. The girls, in accordance with Saudi customs, were completely covered from head to toe. Virtually all the Saudi public are demanding that the young men be severely punished as a deterrent to others.
