JEDDAH: The Administrative Court acquitted a judge, two notaries public and three others of corruption charges in the Thuwal land scam and sentenced six others to jail terms ranging between three and five years here Saturday, a judicial source told Okaz/Saudi Gazette. The court issued its verdict with penalties totaling 25 years in prison for those found guilty of bribery, forgery, abuse of power, and illegally making money from government jobs, the source said. The prosecutor general in the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution said all the sentences were too light and that the acquittals were incorrect, according to the source. The prosecutor objected to the verdicts and sought stiffer penalties, according to sources who added that he also demanded nullification of the acquittals. It is expected that the verdicts will be appealed in late November. Twelve people had been charged in connection with a forged title deed for a SR600 million piece of land in Thuwal, located north of Jeddah. The accused were trying to get SR1.2 billion in compensation for the 2.5-million-square-meter piece of land that was appropriated for vital public projects, sources have said. The judge and the notaries public were the most prominent of those who were acquitted. According to the charge sheet, a judge from Habona Governorate, four notaries public and some clerks at Jeddah's Notary Public Office were implicated in the case, along with a businessman and a civil servant in a government agency who were also accused of conspiring to get the forged title deed issued. The court sentenced one notary public to five years after convicting him of bribery, forgery, abuse of power and making money from his government job. A second notary public was sentenced to four years behind bars after being convicted of bribery, abuse of power, and making money from his government job, sources said. A businessman was sentenced to four years in jail for bribery and forgery, sources said. The owner of the land, an employee in the Notary Public Office, and an attorney who acted as a middleman in the transactions each got three-year sentences, according to a source. The verdicts also included confiscating the amounts received in bribes. Those who were sentenced to jail have decided to object to the verdicts and appeal them, sources said. Dr. Omar Al-Khouli, a professor of Law at King Abdulaziz University and a legal consultant for the Human Rights Commission, told Okaz/Saudi Gazette that the verdicts reflect the wide disparity between discretionary verdicts and those for which penalties have been specifically stated. Under the law, sentences for bribery and forgery range from one to 10 years, depending on the number of charges.
