“Saudi law does not deem anyone responsible for a crime or punishes him unless there is clear evidence, not just rumors, to substantiate the charges against him,” said member of the Lawyers Committee in the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry Naif Fouzi Yamani. He was commenting on the acquittal of eight suspects on Sunday night by the Control and Investigations Board.

The responsibility of illegal constructions and negligence of flood protection projects is spread across a large number of people and departments and spanning not less than 25 years, Yamani said.

No responsible judge will give credence only to media reports of ill-gotten wealth and mismanagement by municipality officials whatever their rank or departments of flood and sewage. They will only act if there is additional evidence, he added.

When a crime is committed, rumors go round, the police arrest some suspects and the Prosecutions and Investigations Commission investigates and prepares a crime sheet and that is sent to court, Yamani said.

“But if the evidence is weak the court will not take up the case and free the suspect,” he said.

It is better to forget the past but learn from past mistakes and take care not to repeat the same mistakes in the future, Al-Yamani said.

Another legal expert, Lutfi Muhammad, said no court punishes a suspect just because the investigators believe there is a case against him. “The investigating authority did not send the eight suspects to trial court because the evidence against them was weak,” he said.

The Summary Court in Jeddah had begun early this week hearings into suspects accused of corrupt conduct that led to devastating floods in Jeddah.

On Sunday, the Control and Investigations Bureau (CIB) confirmed the involvement of only one of the nine suspects in irregularities that led to the 2008 flood disaster.

The CIB ordered after investigations that a supervisor of one of the municipal contracts be handed to the administrative court for legal actions on the charge of taking bribes.

The CIB, which is the department to ensure the discipline of government officials, is also the authority that monitors and investigates financial irregularities of government officials.

The eight suspects who were acquitted by CIB include an undersecretary for constructions and projects and an assistant undersecretary for constructions and support services in the Jeddah Municipality.

Legal experts say that charges against many suspects may have to be dropped for want of conclusive evidence.

However, the travel ban on two expatriate officials — a Lebanese and a European — will continue, a local newspaper reported Monday.

The absolved officials belong to the municipal office and some companies. The charges against them included bribery, forgery and exploiting official positions.

The CIB investigated the charges and reached the conclusion that the charges against the eight will not stand in a court and only one could be prosecuted. The CIB also said the award of contracts, which is a key point in the case, fell outside the government purchases regulations.

Meanwhile, the Summary Court will continue its trial of the suspects in the flood-related cases. In the first hearing on Saturday, the court presented to the defense counsel the charges against the former mayor of Jeddah. The defendant’s reply to the charges is scheduled for Sept. 15.

Early last year, Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal submitted to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah a report on preliminary investigations into the flood that involved the questioning of scores of current and former city officials, contractors and businessmen, focusing on why Jeddah's infrastructure failed to drain rainwater.

It also focused on why land set aside for drainage purposes around the city had been developed with commercial and residential buildings, often with forged legal land ownership documents.