BURAIDAH: A court in Qasim has sentenced a father to six months in jail and 40 lashes for marrying his daughter off to two different men.
The father married his 20-year-old daughter off to a Saudi civil servant who took her as a second wife last year in 1429 H, Al-Watan newspaper reported.
The first husband, who has children from his first marriage, had not consummated his marriage with the second wife.
The father then married his daughter off three months later to another Saudi man who was marrying for the first time. The father also told his daughter that her first husband had divorced her.
He registered the second contact in the same court using the same witnesses, but a different marriage official.
When the first husband received news of the marriage of his second wife to another man, he filed a lawsuit against the father and daughter. The husband also denied in court that he had divorced his second wife and said he was still legally married. In his defense, the father claimed he heard that the first husband had divorced his daughter and that is why he married her off to the second man. He added that witnesses did not know that his daughter was still married to the first man.
The judge annulled the marriage with the first husband after he learned the daughter was three months pregnant with the second husband. He also ordered the wife to return the first husband’s dowry and made the second marriage contract legal. He also sentenced witnesses to the marriages to a lesser sentence.
