Egyptian engineer Ali Abul Qasim - Photo via social media
CAIRO – 26 April 2020: An Egyptian engineer who was sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia in 2017 on charges of smuggling drugs to the Kingdom was acquitted of charges, his brother told Egypt Today, saying the ruling is almost final.
The Saudi judiciary has referred the case of Ali Abul Qassem, who was arrested in 2016 in the Kingdom, to the Saudi Public Prosecution and a retrial may take place, his brother noted, saying that the ruling will most probably become final.
Abul Qassem had worked in the Kingdom since 2007 as a customs broker. In 2016, he was arrested after he received a shipment from Cairo, which had prohibited drugs. Drug trafficking in the Kingdom is punishable by death in the Saudi law.
However, the Egyptian authorities later announced arresting those accused of sending the drug shipment and said they confessed to the crime.
Abul Qassem’s family, since he was arrested, has to worked to save him from the imminent death sentence and appealed to the concerned Egyptian authorities and to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
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In October last year, the Ministry of Immigration said Minister Nabila Makram was briefed on the messages of the engineer’s wife and children on social media, in which they demanded the Saudi authorities to re-investigate the issue.
Makram revealed that the Ministry of Justice and the Office of International Cooperation in the Attorney General's Office have been contacted to quickly send a request to the Saudi authorities to re-investigate based on the Egyptian judicial position on the case, especially with the existence of Arab judicial cooperation agreements that allow the exchange of information.
The minister also went personally to the Office of the Attorney General to follow up the delivery of all the papers pertaining to the case, which prove the innocence of the engineer to the Saudi side.
In January this year, Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court has ordered the retrial of the Egyptian engineer.
A statement by the Egyptian Public Prosecutor’s Office said that the Egyptian top prosecutor phoned his Saudi counterpart to praise the efforts by the Saudi public prosecution, adding that he looks forward to continue the joint fruitful cooperation between both sides in order to achieve justice in matters of common concern.
The Egyptian Public Prosecutor had met with his Saudi counterpart last November in Riyadh, and during the meeting, they reviewed the means of judicial cooperation between the two brotherly countries. Both prosecutors also discussed what the Egyptian prosecution’s investigations into the felony had revealed in relation to the incident of arresting the Egyptian engineer.
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