A court has sentenced a 75-year-old Syrian woman to 40 lashes, four months imprisonment and deportation from the Kingdom for having two unrelated men in her house. The woman, Khamisa Mohammed Sawadi's troubles began last year when a Hai'a team entered her house in Al-Chamli city, north of Riyadh, and found her with two unrelated men, Fahd and Hadian, Al-Watan Arabic daily said. Fahd told Hai'a that he had the right to be there, because Sawadi had breast-fed him as a baby and was therefore considered to be a son to her in Islam, according to Al-Watan. Fahd, 24, added that his friend Hadian was escorting him as he delivered bread for the elderly woman. Al-Watan obtained the court's verdict and said it was partly based on the Hai'a testimony. In his ruling, the judge said it had been proved that Fahd is not Sawadi's son through breastfeeding. The court also doled out punishment to the two men. Fahd was sentenced to four months in prison and 40 lashes; Hadian was sentenced to six months in prison and 60 lashes. The woman's lawyer, Abdel Rahman Al-Lahem, told The Associated Press on Monday that he plans to appeal the verdict, which also demands that Sawadi be deported after serving her prison term. He declined to provide more details and said his client, who is not serving her sentence yet, was not speaking with the media. The court said it based its March 3 ruling on “citizen information” and testimony from Fahd's father, who accused Sawadi of corruption.
