Jeddah
12 September 2012. The head of the third criminal department in Jeddah’s administrative court sentenced the former mayor of Jeddah five years in jail and fined him SR 100,000 for accepting bribes, failing to deliver on his duties and wasting public money. During the trial, the judge asked the defendant what actions he took after realizing that a 1000-meter-long pipeline costing SR 70 million was installed in the wrong location by a national contracting company. He replied that he wrote a letter to his department, but the judge showed him a copy of that letter in which there was no mention of the project being located in the wrong place. The judge also confronted the defendant about a car he received from a contracting company. The defendant replied that he did not know it was given by the company, as he asked the company about it and was assured that it wasn’t from them.
