The seven-year old SAWA card scam took a new turn when the Supreme Court in its landmark verdict overturned the lower court verdicts and issued fresh directive to reexamine the case from the beginning. The Kingdom's highest court quashed the verdicts pronounced earlier by the Jeddah's summary court and the appeals court in Makkah. The Supreme Court has directed reexamining the case in line with the Criminal Procedures Law and the law to combat money laundering. According to the court sources in Riyadh, examining the case in accordance with the Supreme Court directives, would fall under the jurisdiction of the Commission of Public Investigation & Prosecution and the general court. This means that the general court would soon begin fresh hearing in the case, the sources pointed out. The infamous Sawa scam has been in the limelight for over seven years, moving between the courts in Jeddah and Makkah. It all began with a number of victims approaching the Jeddah summary court against one Abdul Aziz Al-Johani, who had allegedly collected over SR1.2 billion from more than 40,000 investors with the help of some accomplices. The court had sentenced the mastermind of the scam Al-Johani, who has since been detained at Briman Prison in Jeddah, to 20 years in prison and 1,000 lashes. The court also imposed a ban on his traveling abroad and asked him to reimburse an amount of SR240 million. Fifty eight other accomplices, including members of security forces and other public servants, also received various punishments that ranged from property confiscation to a freeze on personal bank accounts. Al-Johani, a former security guard at STC, claimed to have access to SAWA prepaid recharge cards at about 80 percent of their face value. He then devised a scheme to sell these cards in the market at its original cost price to reap huge profits and promised to distribute money among the investors. Al-Johani had promised huge profits to people who invested in Sawa cards. However, a number of investors did not make any money despite chipping in with millions of riyals. The scam case moved between the Jeddah and Makkah courts during which the appeals court rejected the verdicts issued by former Judge Sheikh Abid Al-Azouri four times, and later the court asked the president of the summary court to appoint a new judge to deliver a ruling in the long-running case. The court of appeals asked any future judge to consider each case individually and to rule on the private cases before the public ones. Later, the legal battle moved to the Supreme Court when the public prosecutor filed a petition against Al-Johani and his accomplices. The public prosecutor told the court that the mastermind was accused of defrauding the investors and possessed huge wealth illegally while other suspects helped him in the scam. According to court sources, the Makkah appeals court first overturned the Jeddah court verdict in 2007 and directed to examine the case by a new judge. The appeals court overturned the lower court verdict finally in 2010, paving the way for taking up the case to the Supreme Court by the public prosecution. In its verdict, the Supreme Court overturned the lower court verdicts with regard to court fees, observing that the ruling was issued before the due date. The court also pronounced that there is no question of appeal against those verdicts, issued by the lower courts with regard to public and private rights, and upon which there were no objections raised by both parties in the case. The Supreme Court also observed that the lower court judge issued verdict without listening to the arguments of the plaintiffs with regard to public rights. The higher court also referred to the summary court verdict with regard to confiscating properties of the accused, with a ruling that the action was taken without a demand from the victims of the fraud. __
