JEDDAH: The Kingdom’s newly implemented system for punishing technological crimes, which includes identity theft and other crimes using the Internet, has resulted in the prosecution of a young man in Ahsa.
A court in the Eastern Province city fined the man SR50,000, sentenced him to 22 months in jail and 200 lashes for breaking into an e-mail account of a young woman and getting personal photos of her, Adnan Salih, a lawyer and a legal consultant, told the daily Al-Madinah. The man was found guilty of blackmailing the woman by threatening to disseminate her pictures online and to her parents if she did not agree to have an affair with him.
None of the photos were considered prurient. The pictures were of the woman modeling dresses of the atelier where she worked, which were aimed exclusively to clients of the business who are all women.
Salih said the young man confessed to his crime when faced with evidence, including that he had been telephoning the woman over the past two years. It is not clear if this evidence is material (such as recorded conversations) or based on allegations by the woman and her family.
According to the lawyer, the young man propositioned the young woman under blackmail with promises to marry her. He said this prosecution was the result of commendable efforts on behalf of the Ministry of Justice to prescribe specific punishments to various categories of crime.
The lawyer said further actions to prosecute crimes committed with the use of technology includes the current formulation of a so-called “Technology Crimes Center,” which would be staffed with legal experts with information technology backgrounds.
He said the center should be “independent and well-qualified for explaining and clarifying technical and legal actions.”
In January, the Saudi government unveiled 16 articles for prosecuting technology-assisted crimes, specifically mentioning identity theft and running extremist websites. Under the new law, people found guilty of using computers to commit crimes could face up to 10 years in prison and fines of up to SR5 million.
