Saudi Arabia: court adjourns before sentencing Palestinians and Jordanians

A Saudi Arabian court adjourned on Monday before sentencing more than 60 Palestinian and Jordanian prisoners, the Chairman of the Jordanian Committee on Political Prisoners, Khader Al-Mashayekh, has revealed. The court will pronounce the sentences on 21 June.

“The hearing was expected to be the last in a series of hearings which have lasted for a year,” Quds Press reported Al-Mashayekh as saying. “They were accused in February 2019 of helping a terrorist entity, which was a reference to the aid offered to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”

The committee chairman said that the adjournment has shocked everyone. “How will [the detainees] spend half a judicial year without any fault being proven?” he asked.

Considering the changes taking place in the Kingdom, Al-Mashayekh said that the prisoners’ lawyers expected to receive a “positive sentence”. Instead, this is “a negative message”.

The prisoners’ issue was not closed, he pointed out, and could even be escalated. “If the issue was judicial, it would have been completed a long time ago because they did not commit any crime during their stay in the country.”

READ: Saudi to resume trials of Jordanian, Palestinian political prisoners