A man who stubbornly smoked on a Saudi Arabian Airlines (SAA or Saudia) domestic flight was given a court verdict of 30 lashes here Sunday. The Sudanese man had refused to stub out his cigarette despite repeated warnings from the flight crew members during a flight from Qurayat to Jeddah. When the plane landed at King Abdul Aziz Airport in Jeddah, the man was handed over to police. The Commission for Investigation and Prosecution gathered evidence and sent the man on trial. In court, the man apologized and said he was visiting an anti-smoking clinic. Smoking on SAA domestic flights was banned some two decades ago. In 1999, SAA made its international flights smoke-free. In April 2008, a court in the Eastern Province sentenced a man to 50 lashes for smoking on board a Dammam
