JEDDAH: Two Egyptian doctors who were sentenced to jail and flogging for misuse of narcotic medication have appealed the verdicts at the Supreme Judicial Council.
“This is a new step in a case that has generated public reaction in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia,” said Ali Al-Ashri, Egyptian consul general in Jeddah. “The appeal will give the two doctors another opportunity to defend themselves against the charges before the highest judicial authority in Saudi Arabia,” said Al-Ashri, while expressing his confidence in the Saudi judicial system.
Dr. Shawki Abd Rabbo was sentenced to 20 years in prison and 1,700 lashes, and Dr. Rauf Amin Al-Arabi was sentenced to 15 years in jail and 1,500 lashes. The two doctors worked for separate private hospitals in Jeddah.
The Health Affairs Department in Makkah said in a statement that the charges against the two doctors’ included theft, trafficking and misuse of narcotics.
It added that Abd Rabbo, who worked for Al-Ansar Hospital, had illicit relationships with a number of women whom he had injected with pharmaceutical narcotics, while Al-Arabi, who worked for Al-Salam Hospital, gave his employer’s wife medication that made her delirious and hallucinate.
According to the statement, Abd Rabbo, who was arrested on Oct. 21, 2006, was accused of many crimes among which was bringing 950 ampuls of dormicom and 420 ampuls of nalorphine into the Kingdom.
Al-Arabi was arrested on April 14, 2007, on charges of bringing and selling pharmaceutical narcotics to his employer’s wife over a period of five years and causing her to become addicted to those medicines.
The sentences were passed by a summary court in Jeddah on Nov. 14, 2007, and have since then stirred mixed reactions in both Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Meanwhile, Egyptian Minister of Manpower and Migration Aisha Abdul Hadi said employment contracts for Egyptian medical doctors at Saudi private hospitals would include articles that guarantee the rights of both sides and commit them to principles that would prevent financial and legal violations.
“This would ensure the continuity of cooperation between Egypt and Saudi Arabia in the health sector in which the Egyptian doctors have a huge chunk,” she said.
