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SAUDI ARABIA: EGYPTIAN ENGINEER ON DEATH ROW EXONERATED
April 30, 2020: An Egyptian engineer who was sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia in 2017 on charges of smuggling drugs to the Kingdom was acquitted of charges, his brother told Egypt Today on 26 April 2020, saying the ruling is almost final.
The Saudi judiciary has referred the case of Ali Abul Qassem, who was arrested in 2016 in the Kingdom, to the Saudi Public Prosecution and a retrial may take place, his brother noted, saying that the ruling will most probably become final.
Abul Qassem had worked in the Kingdom since 2007 as a customs broker. In 2016, he was arrested after he received a shipment from Cairo, which had prohibited drugs. Drug trafficking in the Kingdom is punishable by death in the Saudi law.
However, the Egyptian authorities later announced arresting those accused of sending the drug shipment and said they confessed to the crime.
Abul Qassem’s family, since he was arrested, has to worked to save him from the imminent death sentence and appealed to the concerned Egyptian authorities and to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. (Sources: egypttoday.com, 26/04/2020)
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