JEDDAH, 27 October 2003 — A judge in Qunfuda has sentenced three men to four months in jail and 300 lashes for kidnapping three girls, Al-Madinah newspaper reported. The kidnappers kept the girls for a month between Jeddah and Qunfuda, the paper said. It said one of the men invited a high school student for a ride in his car with her sister and cousin. Once they were in the car, he decided to kidnap them. One of the girls escaped but did not alert her family. The families later reported the disappearance of the two girls to police, who launched an intensive search for them. In the meantime, the two girls were taken to Jeddah, where they stayed with the kidnapper’s brother until they were caught on Jeddah’s Corniche in the company of a foreigner, Al-Madinah said. The girls were sent to a correctional facility for teenagers.
