RIYADH, 1 August 2007 — The lawyer of the family that saw members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice acquitted on Monday in the death of a Saudi national said they will appeal the decision of the judges in the case.

“I will include my objection letter to the court ruling once I receive it next week,” said the lawyer, Ouda Al-Bulawi. “The court ruling and the objection letter will then be sent to the Cassation Court where judges there will decide what to do.”

The three judges presiding over the case ruled that the three commission members and a security guard were not guilty of any wrongdoing in the death of Ahmed Al-Bulawi (no relation to the lawyer), a 50-year-old Saudi man who collapsed and died in early June after being detained at a commission center in Tabuk.

Sources told Arab News that judges at the court in Tabuk relied on an official medical autopsy report that stated that the man died from natural causes.

The case had been transferred from the General Investigation and Prosecution Authority (GIPA) in Tabuk in June to a religious court for judges to try the commission members. An earlier statement from the Governorate of Tabuk said that the men were also tried according to the private rights of the family.

The attorney said he believed the trial was conducted in an unjust way, as the three judges did not question the commission members regarding their actions in arresting the deceased.

“I have never seen a court trial like this before,” he said. “The judges neither questioned the commission members nor did they summon eyewitnesses in the case whose testimonies had been earlier recorded. They also refused to specify whether the deceased was hit by an object during his arrest at the center, as the initial medical report did not include that a mark was on his body.”

The lawyer said that the commission members were also not held responsible for committing any mistakes during the arrest of the deceased.

The lawyer Al-Bulawi also said that the judges presiding over the trial had refused to look into how the deceased’s blood pressure had suddenly dropped at the station, adding that they only relied on an official medical report. The judges had also not discussed the issue of how the 50-year-old was mistakenly arrested.

A part-time commission member in Tabuk arrested Ahmed Al-Bulawi, a retired border patrol guard, in early June after a woman was spotted entering his car near an amusement park. Both Al-Bulawi and the woman were reported to be in a state of “illegal seclusion”. They were arrested and taken to the commission center.

At the center, it was established that the man worked as a driver for the family and would run errands to earn extra cash to support his family. The woman was released after her brother picked her up at the center. Al-Bulawi, on the other hand, collapsed and died. An official medical report said that he died of natural causes due to a sudden heart attack. Five commission members were arrested and the case was transferred to the GIPA in Tabuk.