JEDDAH: The Saudi man sentenced to five years in prison for boasting on television about his sex life appealed his case on Saturday, claiming errors and biased treatment in the trial, his lawyer said.
Mazen Abdul Jawad, who received a jail sentence of five years and 1,000 lashes for bragging about his sex life on the LBC “Bold Red Line” program last July, and three of his accomplices have appealed the verdicts, said Muhammad Amin Mirdad, the judge presiding over the case.
Mirdad said the four men appeared in court on Saturday and separately appealed the verdicts.
“We will carefully study their objections. If they are worthwhile, we will consider abrogating the verdict otherwise we will submit the entire case with the reasons on which we based our ruling to the Court of Cassation in Makkah,” he said. Mirdad said Rosanna Al-Yami, a female journalist with the LBC, and cameraman Omar Filmban were also supposed to attend court but did not appear. The two were to attend a court session to implement a royal directive stipulating that journalists be tried at the Ministry of Information and Culture and not in Criminal Courts.
He said Al-Yami requested a postponement of the session citing personal reasons, while Filmban sent a representative who requested a postponement. The judge said the royal directive would be implemented on Monday.
Meanwhile, in his appeal, Abdul Jawad’s lawyer Suleiman Al-Jimaie claimed there are 32 procedural errors in the ruling.
“The verdict against my client was based on unacceptable evidence,” he added.
He also said the court was acting out of its jurisdiction and that the Ministry of Information and Culture is the body assigned to look into media violations.
Jimaie also said his client was unfairly treated because the cases against journalists involved in the same program were moved from the Jeddah Criminal Court to a special panel on journalistic malpractice at the Ministry of Information and Culture. “How can parts of the same case be handled by two different courts,” he asked.
