JEDDAH, 11 February 2007 — Saud Al-Khaledi commemorated yesterday the first anniversary of his marriage to Rania Albou-Enin behind the bars of a Saudi detention center in Alkhobar. He has little choice now but to wait for a second appeal on a judge’s decision last summer annulling the marriage at the request of Rania’s father. The couple was also sentenced to two months in prison and 100 lashes for marrying without the consent of Rania’s father.

The 30-year-old engineer has been in and out of jail once before stemming from his marriage to Rania, a 27-year-old physician. The crime: They eloped to Bahrain a year ago to get married against the wishes of Rania’s father who, the woman says, has physically abused her and has always suppressed her interest in marriage. She claims her father is more interested in her SR10,000 a month salary than the qualities of the man she loves.

Rania, who is expecting to give birth to the couple’s first child, is currently in hiding, worried that the social services will take her baby away. Al-Khaledi told Arab News yesterday that when he told police that he didn’t know the location of his wife, they asked him to put this denial on paper with his signature.

“They said if I was intentionally covering up (her location), then I would face charges in court (for making a false statement),” Al-Khaledi told Arab News yesterday.

Arab News contacted Brig. Gen. Khazem Al-Amri from Alkhobar police center yesterday seeking a comment, but he declined and referred further inquiries to Col. Yousif Al-Qahtani, Eastern Province police spokesman. Al-Qahtani said the case is “sensitive” and thus police were not commenting on the status of Al-Khaledi’s detention.

Rania spoke to Arab News on Tuesday from her secret location. She said her husband doesn’t know where she is. In tears, she added that since she refuses to return to the custody of her father, the judge wants to put her in a women’s shelter.

“I don’t want to give birth in a shelter home and then end up seeing my baby being taken from me,” she said. “I’d rather give birth at home and die but make sure the baby is in safe hands.”

Al-Khaledi has spent five months of his first year of marriage in jail. Last summer he was held for three months and was later released for 15 days in an attempt to reconcile with Rania’s father. The father refused to negotiate and Al-Khaledi ended up back in prison. In December Judge Omar Al-Tuwaijri upheld a separate court’s decision that annulled the marriage and sentenced the couple to lashes and jail time.

Since last summer, when the father initiated the legal proceedings, the courts continue to demand that Rania be turned over either to her father’s custody or to a shelter for women — in Saudi Arabia women of any age require a male guardian.

Al-Khaledi described yesterday how he was arrested last summer.

“The Khobar police called me up and told me a week later (after the initial ruling) that I have to hand over my wife to a shelter, but I refused and they arrested me,” he said.

The couple’s lawyer, Ibrahim Al-Behairi, is appealing Judge Al-Tuwaijri’s ruling in December that annulled the marriage and meted out punishment to the husband and wife.

The problems began when Rania expressed to her father her wish to marry Al-Khaledi, an engineer and a brother of her friend. She claims her father persistently refused to comply with her wishes without providing any reason.

Al-Khaledi said that during the hearing the judge did not ask for any testimony from him. “He only addressed my wife mocking her by saying: ‘why did you flee to Bahrain instead of pursuing your marriage in your own country?’”

Rania answered that her father beat her up and that she fled to Bahrain claiming that there was a medical conference she had to attend. The judge said that there is no Shariah in Bahrain and that the only true Shariah is in Saudi Arabia. However, the couple claim they were married in a Sunni-sanctioned court in Bahrain. “He used bad language calling us adulterers. That was really unacceptable coming from a judge. He was completely biased,” said Al-Khaledi.