The District Court in Buraidah is investigating a teenager accused of initiating contact with members of the opposite sex in shopping malls and engaging in consensual relationships with 15 girls. The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Hai'a) found stored on the teenager's mobile telephone over 1,000 text messages from girls, and photographs reportedly providing evidence of illicit relationships. Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Hussni, a judge at the District Court in Buraidah who is looking into the case, said the Hai'a had not disclosed the names of the females involved to the court in order to protect them, but added that “the young man who is going to be tried was preyed on by girls who lured him, just as he himself had his own victims”. Al-Hussni said society generally blamed young men in such cases, “but in most cases the girls are the ones who begin luring the boys”. “This explains why Almighty Allah decreed that: The woman and the man Guilty of adultery or fornication Flog each of them With a hundred stripes Let not compassion move you In their case, in a matter Prescribed by Allah, if ye believe In Allah and the last Day: And let a party Of the Believers Witness their punishment” (Surah Al-Nur verse 2) One message found on the telephone of the teenager that is of particular concern to the Hai'a relates how a pregnant girl sought an abortion, and investigators are attempting to verify whether the pregnancy was the result of an illicit relationship between the girl and the young man. “There is no evidence that the young man committed adultery,” Al-Hussni said. “The pregnancy might have resulted from another illicit relationship since pregnancy can occur with a single sperm, as in the case of test tube babies.” Al-Hussni added that judges always warn about using the term adultery due to the seriousness of the matter. Al-Hussni went on to say that very few cases of blackmail occurred in Qassim, and appealed to parents and families to take care of their children. “The case we are looking into, of a man under twenty years of age having engaged in all these relationships, should serve as an alarm bell to all families,” Al
