The spokesman for the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the Hai'a) in Jizan has denied that a man recently sentenced to lashes for having six wives was a member of the organization. Spokesman Muhammed Bin Ali Al-Adhabi told Al-Madina Arabic daily that the 56-year-old was not a security guard, as reported, “at any of the Hai'a offices” and that he has “no connection at all to the field or administrative work of the Commission”. Al-Adhabi told Al-Madina that it was the Hai'a itself that arrested the man in Ahad Al-Masareha after they received information and located him at a furnished flat. During questioning contradictions were revealed in his statements and “deception” uncovered in a family identity card, Al-Adhabi said. He added that the court ruling of 120 lashes of the whip was final and had been approved by the Court of Cassation. The court ruled that the sentence be carried out in three phases of 40 lashes, with a minimum of 15 days between each. The sentence also includes a five-year ban on travel abroad and also bans the convicted from giving sermons or leading prayer in mosques. The convicted man claimed he was unaware that marriage to six wives simultaneously was against Shariah Law. Neighbors of the man, however, say they had heard he had six wives and also believed him to be a member of the Hai'a. “He used to lead prayer at the mosque in the village where he lived, and would go round in an official Hai'a car telling people to pray,” Khalid Al-Hukami told Al-Madina. “We'd heard about him, but didn't think he would have had six wives at the same time, as here in the south lots of people have more than one wife and get married and divorced all the time.”
