DAMMAM, 21 November 2006 — One of the most talked-about Saudi women in the Kingdom currently resides in a prison in this port city on the Arabian Gulf.

Perhaps it would be more correct to call Fatima a refugee; she could walk out of the prison at any time if she returns to the custody of her family. But the woman in her early thirties who was forcibly divorced against her will from her husband says she will walk out of prison only when her requirement is met.

“I’m leaving this place on one condition only: That I go back to my husband,” she said in an exclusive interview with Arab News from her jail cell where she has languished with her two young children since July.

In this highly publicized case that began early last year, a judge ruled in favor of Fatima’s family (led by efforts from two half brothers) who filed to divorce Fatima from her husband, Mansour Al-Timani, after they discovered that the man allegedly misled them about his tribal affiliation — a charge Mansour denies.

By the time a judge in Jouf ruled the marriage void on July 20, 2005, the couple had been married for over three years and Fatima was pregnant with the couple’s second child.

During the one-hour interview in the women’s prison, Fatima told Arab News about how she and Mansour moved from one place to another in order to escape and avoid harassment by her half brothers.

Fatima says that her late father had agreed to the marriage even though he knew that Mansour had another wife and that they were planning to move far away from Dammam to Jouf.

As a compromise, the newly married couple agreed to live a bit closer, in centrally located Qasim where both sides of the families have members. “My husband told me later that both half brothers warned him against marrying me,” she said.

Fatima told Arab News that her relationship with her family members in Qasim (including her half brothers) never went beyond the formal, and that their relationship with Fatima’s parents in Dammam was not close, either. Still, Fatima’s relatives — especially her half brothers – took umbrage to Mansour’s tribal roots, and took their issue to the courts.

Fatima’s lawyer Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem told Arab News in October that he was optimistic that Fatima would be vindicated in the appeals process, but she still lingers in prison, fearful of returning to the fold of the family that scorned her so much as to intervene on her marriage.

Al-Lahem also said that while giving his ruling, the judge excluded two crucial lines of the law that would have been in Fatima’s favor.

“The two lines state clearly that if incompatibility was discovered after the marriage then the wife is the only person to decide whether to ask for divorce or endure in the marriage,” he said.

The first sign of trouble was on the wedding day in Dammam over four years ago when the only family members from the Qasim branch of Fatima’s family to attend were her two half brothers.

While Fatima and Mansour were living in Qasim with one of Mansour’s sisters, they started being harassed by her half brothers.

In hopes of leaving the problem behind, she and Mansour left Qasim and moved to Jouf where, after three months of marriage, Fatima became pregnant. Shortly afterward, she learned that her half brothers had approached her ailing father and asked him to convince Fatima to divorce her husband.

“According to what I have been told, my father told them that a divorce was not possible while I was pregnant,” she said.

The half brothers persisted with their request, however, and even suggested another man who was willing to marry Fatima.

“I learned later from my aunt that the man they had suggested was a drug addict and an alcoholic,” she said.

When her half brothers learned that she and Mansour were living in Jouf, they filed a lawsuit asking the court there to divorce the couple on the grounds of incompatibility.

The suit was filed in the names of her half brothers and her father. Fatima explained that her father had been hospitalized at the time on her eldest brother’s health insurance. She claims the half brothers convinced their ill, bed-ridden father to give them power of attorney for his name. After that they filed for Fatima’s divorce under their father’s name.

The first court hearing took place when Fatima and Mansour were in Syria; Mansour went to the second hearing and was asked to come back for the third.

At one of the hearings, Fatima was allowed in and asked if she agreed to a divorce.

“I said absolutely not and showed a medical report verifying my pregnancy,” she said.

While the hearings were in progress, Fatima received news that her father’s health was worsening and they went to Dammam for Eid Al-Adha.

Both she and Mansour were warmly received by her father when they visited him in 2004. The couple stayed in Fatima’s father’s house for several days and on a Friday, her father’s blood pressure dropped dangerously and he was rushed to hospital where he died the same day.

After they returned to Jouf they asked the judge through the legal authorization to transfer the case to the town of Taimaa, where Mansour is from, so he can prove that he comes from a well-known tribe there.

“We knew later from the legal authorization that the judge had torn up his legal authorized papers that my husband had made for him to follow the case and attend the hearings,” said Fatima.

After that they stopped attending subsequent hearings in the case, considering the case closed.

Once they returned to Jouf, the judge granted the divorce with the couple in absentia. It took seven months for them to discover that, legally speaking, they were divorced. When they learned of the ruling, they fled to Al-Kharj to live with Fatima’s aunt. Her half brothers found them there and forced her to return with them to Dammam.

Fatima and Mansour then fled to Jeddah in an effort to present their case to a high-ranking official but they were picked up by the secret police for living together unmarried.

Now authorities have asked Fatima to get her children out of the prison and pass them to the custody of their father.

“I don’t mind that but can they assure me the child will be safe from my half brothers?” she asked.

Fatima denies her half-brother’s claims that she gave them power of attorney as they have claimed to the media. She also rejects their claims that she won’t leave the prison out of fear that Mansour would harm the children.

“That’s all nonsense,” she said. “I’m afraid of my children’s life from them.”

Through Arab News Fatima has a message for the king.

“I ask for justice,” she said. “I don’t want money or anything else. I just want to go back to my husband and live with my children.”