Saudi Arabian judges charged with treason

Saudi Arabia’s terrorism court has charged 10 formerly prominent judges with the capital crime of high treason for failing to impose harsh sentences in cases they tried, according to Washington-based Democracy Now in the Arab World (Dawn).

Among the defendants on trial before the specialised criminal court (SCC), are six former SCC members and four former judges of the kingdom’s supreme court. The SCC judges were compelled to “sign confessions stating they had been too ‘lenient’” in the cases they tried, Dawn revealed.

Dawn cited anonymous sources who reported that the “government has denied the defendants legal counsel and held them incommunicado since their detention on April 11th, 2022”.

The first secret hearing was held on February 16th, said Dawn, a human rights organisation founded by dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi shortly before his 2018 execution and dismemberment in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

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“The shocking charges levelled against these judges, many of whom have issued egregiously abusive sentences against Saudi citizens at the behest of the crown prince, demonstrates that no one is safe in Saudi Arabia,” said Dawn’s Gulf director Abdullah Alaoudh.

“The prosecution of these judges is emblematic of the crown prince’s wider purges within the country and his attempts to make the judiciary subservient solely to his wishes,” he said.

Among the former SCC judges charged are Abdullah bin Khaled al-Luhaidan who convicted “prominent women’s rights activist Loujain Alhathloul on baseless terrorism charges in 2020″, and Abdulaziz bin Medawi al-Jaber who sentenced many of the 81 people executed in March 2022 (offences ranged from joining militant groups to holding “deviant beliefs”, according to the Saudi Arabian interior ministry).

In June, the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman appointed loyalists who reviewed cases and increased sentences of women convicted for commenting on Saudi affairs on social media.

Leeds University PhD student Salma al-Shehab, who called for reforms and the release of detained activists, received 45 rather than 34 years. Nourah al-Qatani, who tweeted criticisms of the regime, was given 45 rather than 13 years.

Dawn condemned the prosecutions of the judges well as the heavy sentences they and others imposed on rights activists.

A businessman who has travelled around the kingdom in recent years told The Irish Times, “Saudi Arabia has been completely transformed and opened up”.

The crown prince (35), who is highly popular with young Saudis, has curbed ultra-conservative clerics and reined in religious police. He has eased gender segregation and allowed cafes and cinemas to open. Women can drive, attend public sporting events, assume guardianship of their children, live on their own, and obtain passports and travel without permission of male relatives. The kingdom stages popular and classical music concerts and foreign sporting events.

However, despite dramatic social changes, domestic purges and Saudi Arabia’s deadly and devastating war on Yemen continue.

The Saudi media ministry did not reply to a request by The Irish Times for comment on the judges’ trials.