JEDDAH: The summary court in Jeddah, in a hearing into the SR1.2 billion Sawa scam, has acquitted a Border Guard colonel for lack of evidence.
Abdul Aziz Al-Jihani, the alleged mastermind of the dubious deal, earlier asked the court that the officer be ordered to return SR10 million that Al-Jihani said he had paid to the man.
Presiding judge Abid Al-Azuri let the officer go free after taking an oath from him.
The judge ordered Al-Jihani to return SR10 million to a promoter of the scam as documents submitted by him proved his claim.
Al-Azuri, however, did not exonerate the man of charges that he misled unsuspecting people to invest in Al-Jihani’s fictitious investment projects and said he deserved a one-year prison sentence.
A total of 33 people have so far been convicted of their criminal roles in promoting the Sawa fraud in which at least 40,000 investors were cheated. The case dates back to about three years.
Three police officers involved in the scam are serving five years in jail after having been ordered to return SR800,000, while another officer sentenced to a year’s imprisonment and was asked to return SR10 million that he received from Al-Jihani.
Al-Jihani’s lawyer, Hisham Hanbouli, said the court rulings proved that the case was concerned with the transaction of cash rather than trading in Sawa call cards as has been claimed in the media.
