Mazen Abdul Jawad, the Saudi arrested for speaking on television about his sexual exploits, was sentenced Wednesday to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes of the whip. Lawyer Soleiman Al-Jumai'i said his client would appeal the sentence, which includes a ban on travel and talking to the media for five years after his release, maintaining that Lebanese Television Corporation program makers edited and used voice-overs to produce program unrepresentative of Abdul Jawad's true contribution. The July 15 broadcast of the LBC Bold Red Line program showing Abdul Jawad and three friends discussing sexual experiences prompted some 200 complaints to be filed against him in Saudi Arabia. His three companions were also convicted of similar charges and each sentenced to two years' jail and 300 lashes. Al-Jumai'i has insisted that the court has no jurisdiction over the case, which he says should - according to the Publication Law - come under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture and Information, and not the Commission for Investigation and Prosecution which is conducting the investigation. Al-Jumai'i has also cited Article 134 of legal proceedings defining the roles of district courts which says: “If the judgment in a case is dependent on the verdict of another, then legal proceedings should be halted until the other case is resolved.” It was reported two days ago that a Ministry of Culture and Information committee had since July been looking into a complaint from Al-Jumai'i to see if LBC had committed any breaches of law that came under the ministry's jurisdiction. Al-Jumai'i had requested that the original pre-edited versions of the program recording be made available to the court, but it is believed that the tapes were taken out of the Kingdom by two LBC members of staff. LBC's offices in Jeddah and Riyadh were closed by the government following the July broadcast. Al-Jumai'i said after his client was sentenced that the case had been conducted under public pressure, reflecting his comments on Monday that the trial was proceeding deliberately quickly “just to convict my client with fabricated evidence”. Abdul Jawad, who is a divorced father of four, told Okaz newspaper shortly after his arrest late July that he was “setup”. His involvement with LBC began a year earlier when he was asked to discuss sexual relations “in a marital context” on air. “I agreed, as I'd gone through a 16-year marriage,” Abdul Jawad said in the interview. “I thought it would be of help to people getting married in the future.”
