JEDDAH: Investigations in the case of Mazen Abdul Jawad, the Saudi who appeared on LBC’s “Bold Red Line” last month bragging about his sex life, may lead to charges against other individuals, an anonymous source at the Investigation and Prosecution Commission (IPC) told Arab News on Thursday.
Already three other men who appeared in the segment and whose names have not been released have been detained as accomplices.
“This has led to the delay in taking suspects to the court for trial,” said the source, adding that the four men are probably going to spend Ramadan and Eid behind bars. “They cannot be taken to court before sometime in October.”
The source would not elaborate on who else if anyone would be facing charges, but it has been suggested in previous reports that the producers of the program could become involved. Saudi authorities recently shuttered LBC’s Saudi offices. LBC is a major Saudi-owned, Lebanon-based broadcaster.
For his part, Abdul Jawad claims that the show’s producers took four hours of footage of him talking about sex and reduced it to a few minutes of the most extreme off-the-cuff comments where, among other things, Abdul Jawad claims he engaged in pre-marital sex at 14 and regularly cruises the streets of Jeddah looking for hook-ups with women via his mobile phone’s Bluetooth application. He could face charges of promoting sinful behavior (publicizing vice), which is considered a crime in Shariah law.
The IPC has brought in voice experts to prove that the video footage wasn’t dubbed or creatively edited and LBC producers have been subpoenaed to verify that Abdul Jawad participated in the program and that it was he who made the incriminating comments.
