JEDDAH, 20 January 2008 — A disciplinary committee at the Justice Ministry in Riyadh yesterday returned the law license of the Saudi lawyer who represented the “Qatif Girl,” the 20-year-old woman who was kidnapped and raped by seven men last year.

Lawyer and human rights activist Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem was returned his license, which was confiscated on Nov. 14 prior to a hearing at Qatif General Court, said Al-Lahem’s lawyer Khaled Al-Mutairi.

Judge Saad Al-Mohanna, one of three judges at the court, took Al-Lahem’s license and told him that the Judicial Committee had decided to suspend him from the case.

Al-Mutairi said that he has not been officially informed whether charges made by a state prosecutor against Al-Lahem last month have been dropped. “There is no clear end on that matter. The disciplinary committee has reserved the case, as the prosecutor did not continue following the lawsuit,” said Al-Muatiri.

Al-Mutairi represented Al-Lahem on Dec. 5 at a closed-door hearing in front of a disciplinary committee at the Justice Ministry in Riyadh. A three-member panel consisting of two judges and a lawyer were supposed to review a complaint by a state prosecutor who accused Al-Lahem of misrepresenting legal subjects through the media to ruin the judiciary’s image and harm the Kingdom.

The hearing was postponed to an unspecified date to give both the prosecutor and the defense time to read into the case. At the time, the committee promised to return Al-Lahem his license a week later after Al-Mutairi argued that, according to Saudi law, a disciplinary judicial committee at the Justice Ministry is the only body authorized to revoke lawyers’ licenses.

If found guilty Al-Lahem could have faced one of four punishments: an official warning (on one of two levels), three-year suspension from practicing law, or have his named removed from the Saudi lawyers’ registration.

Al-Mutairi said that since the state prosecutor has not activated the case yet, the charges have become “reserved,” which does not mean that the charges have been dropped altogether.

“Legally the prosecutor has the right to file the same lawsuit again and schedule another hearing,” said Al-Mutairi, adding that Al-Lahem has the legal right to file a lawsuit against the judge, who confiscated his law license, as a personal offense against him, or he can submit a complaint against the judge to the Supreme Judiciary Council.

“The council is the highest executive judicial court in the Kingdom and the only authority that has the power to question judges,” explained Al-Muatiri.

During a televised presentation of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah’s pardon of the “Qatif Girl” on Dec. 17, Justice Minister Abdullah Al-Asheikh denied “rumors” that Al-Lahem’s license had been revoked. The minister said that the Saudi law has a system to punish lawyers if they make mistakes. “Punishing any lawyer is not merely a reactionary move,” he said.

In relation to this Al-Mutairi said that the ministry was playing with words. “They certainly believe that what the Qatif judge did was completely wrong so they invented the idea that what has been confiscated is not the law license but merely the lawyer’s ID,” he said.

According to Saudi law, lawyers, after being approved from ministry to practice law, receive two official proofs: a certificate that should be placed in their offices and an ID card that should be presented to judges before a hearing.

Al-Mutairi said that comments by the justice minister on Dec. 17 that Al-Lahem was not summoned to a disciplinary meeting at the Ministry of Justice was “certainly not true, everyone knows that a disciplinary hearing was held and postponed.”

Al-Lahem declined to comment.