RIYADH: The Penal Court in Jeddah has sentenced a young resident to nine months in jail and 80 lashes for threatening and blackmailing a woman.

The man, with whom she had a relationship before marrying someone else, had threatened to publish her photographs and conversations on Twitter and WhatsApp unless she agreed to meet him, local media said.

When she decided to marry, the man sent a series of messages to her sister’s phone threatening to publish her photographs and conversations, a source quoted by the publication said.

She agreed to talk to him to reach an amicable solution, but he insisted on meeting her in an apartment. At this stage she informed the Haia, which then set up a trap for him.

She agreed to meet him on condition that he brought all the photographs, messages and other items. At the apartment, Haia members arrested him, and found photographs of the woman and the threatening messages on his phone.