The Court of Appeals in Makkah recently summoned a judge and public notary as well as a number of real estate developers to investigate a case of forgery of a land deed. The area in question is more than 4 million square meters.

The land deed was supposedly issued by the general court in Jeddah but was found to be fake. So the court filed charges of forgery, abuse of power and bribery against the persons involved. An official source told a local newspaper that the judges confronted the defendants during a court session with the charges of the general prosecution against them in Makkah.

The Court of Appeals summoned the defendants in Jeddah and sentenced the public notary to seven seven years in jail and a fine of SR1 million. The judge was sentenced to five years in prison and a fine of SR10,000 while a third party was handed a three-year sentence with a fine of SR200,000.

The source said that in an earlier hearing, the prosecution had argued that the public notary did indeed sign the land deed but had not committed forgery.