RIYADH, 29 December 2007 — The high-profile case of Salman Al-Huraisi, a 28-year-old Saudi hotel security guard who died as a result of alleged beatings by two members of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, has been transferred to the Cassation Court, the Kingdom’s court of appeals. A ruling is expected within a month.
Raif Badwi, a human rights advocate, has teamed up with the family’s attorney, Yahya Al-Huraisi, to appeal the lower court’s decision on Nov. 28 dropping all charges against two defendants in the murder case — both of them Commission members.
Badwi is expected to highlight the case from a human rights perspective and underscore the conclusion made by the General Investigation and Prosecution Authority (GIPA), the Kingdom’s equivalent of a district attorney’s office, which had declared the two agents culpable for Al-Huraisi’s death.
“The ruling (by the lower court) implies what I refer to as a ‘license to kill’,” Badwi told Arab News. “If the Cassation Court does not overturn the lower court’s decision and there is no intervention from higher authorities, this basically means that these people can enter anyone’s house in the name of religion, humiliate them physically and mentally, take them to a station and even kill someone and get away with it.”
The human rights activist said that he had received death threats on his cell phone after he agreed to be part of the appeal team from anonymous people who called themselves “soldiers of the two holy mosques.” “I am not going to drop this case, even if I am going to be jailed or killed for it,” Badwi said.
Three judges in a Riyadh court dropped the charges against the two commission members last month after making the members swore under oath that they had not taken part in the raid or beat the deceased. The defendants had retracted confessions made during an initial hearing.
Al-Huraisi’s home was raided after Commission members determined that liquor was being sold from the house in Riyadh’s Al-Oraija district. Over 18 agents swooped down on the house. He was arrested, handcuffed and taken to the local Commission center along with 10 family members who were in other apartments in the building. Al-Huraisi died in custody and an autopsy report concluded that he had been beaten and that this was the likely cause of death. The raid involved Commission members and police swooping in commando style on the house. The Commission members immediately destroyed the bottles of alcohol seized from the house instead of treating them as evidence of criminal activity.
The court verdict that dropped the charges against the two Commission members did not mention the official autopsy report, which gave a graphic description of the suspect’s brains coming out due to a head wound. Judges also rejected testimonies of witnesses who saw the defendants enter the house during the raid. The defense claimed that the two members had not taken part in the raid.
After interrogating all 18 Commission members who participated in the raid, the GIPA concluded that the two defendants were responsible for Al-Huraisi’s death.
The Cassation Court will now either uphold the lower court’s ruling or order a retrial.
Since the incident in May, the Commission has conducted several highly publicized training programs for its field staff. Commission members have been ordered not to play the role of police officers, but to call in police to handle any illegal activities that they confront.
The Interior Ministry has ordered all members of the Commission not to detain suspects or take them to its centers. The Commission has also tried to improve its image by better coordinating with the media and taking inquiries by members of the press.
