JEDDAH, 12 June 2008 — The lawyer for family members of a man they say was beaten to death in custody of the religious police in May 2007 in Riyadh filed a second appeal yesterday in the Riyadh Court of Appeals.
The lawyer, Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, said the judges must consider whether the actions of two members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice constituted a violation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which the Kingdom voluntarily signed in 1997.
“The case must be legally handled and looked at from that angle,” said Al-Lahem. “It’s an obvious case of torture that led to death.”
In November 2007, the Riyadh General Court declared the two men not guilty in the death of Salman Al-Huraisi, 28, after he was taken into custody following a raid on the family home that found alcohol in quantities that suggested an illegal selling operation.
Al-Huraisi and his family members were arrested. The man died in custody and the autopsy report indicated the body had severe head injuries that likely led to the man’s death.
The Riyadh Court of Appeals later returned the case to the General Court after identifying what it called 12 errors, including judges’ failure to hear eyewitness testimonies.
The General Court later answered some of the Court of Appeals inquiries, but Arab News has learned that the General Court did not reply with all pertinent documentation — including a copy of Al-Lahem’s appeal — and that its reply only took six out of the 30 days it was allowed to put together all the requisite documentation, which should include a specific reply to each of the Appeals Court requests for clarifications.
There were also some differences between the courts over the relevance of questioning why so many commission members had participated in the raid on the home of the Huraisi family.
Allowing witness testimony has also been an issue. Al-Lahem says he would like to see witnesses testify, and the Appeals Court has questioned why Al-Huraisi’s neighbors have been excluded from testifying when the General Court allowed a security guard and another commission member to testify on behalf of the accused men.
Al-Lahem also said that the General Court considered an outdated Shariah edict that questions whether a blow to the head can be a cause of death.
The Court of Appeals said that the General Court would have to substantiate that supposed evidence with actual medical opinion.
“Such edicts were written 500 to 600 years ago,” said Al-Lahem. “Now the science of anatomy is very advanced and a medical report can explain very specifically the cause of death.”
Now it’s up for the Riyadh Court of Appeals to decide whether to uphold the General Court’s not-guilty verdict, or to send the case to a different set of judges. For his part, Al-Lahem says the rulings by the Appeals Court were “impressive and promising.”
In another development in the case, Al-Lahem has filed a defamation suit against two major Saudi newspapers for publishing a picture of one of Huraisi’s brothers who has been charged with alcohol possession. The dailies ran photos of the arrest of men in a vehicle. Though the picture was blurred to hide the identities, the newspapers identified one of the men as Al-Huraisi’s brother.
Al-Lahem is suing for defamation of the deceased and the family. “Some people are not satisfied with the young man being killed but they also want to defame him in his grave, let alone his family,” he said.
