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Arabia
Saudi Arabian court orders jail, lashes for Canadian teen
2008-04-06
A court in Saudi Arabia has reportedly sentenced a Canadian teenager to spend one year in prison and receive 200 lashes for his involvement in a schoolyard brawl that left a man dead. Mahmoud Al-Ken, a reporter for a Montreal Arabic radio station, said the family of 17-year-old Sultan Kohail told him the teen had been sentenced on Saturday. In a prior ruling handed down March 3, Kohail's 23-year-old brother, Mohamed, was sentenced to death by beheading for the same incident.

The Kohails have maintained that they're both innocent. Their family says Mohamed Kohail didn't get a fair trial, with the entire case consisting of 10 brief court hearings totalling about 90 minutes. Also, the court refused to hear any defence witnesses, the family maintains. Earlier this week, Mohamed's lawyer was kicked out of court after he tabled documents for the 23-year-old's appeal. The judges, the same ones who sentenced Mohamed, also threatened to revoke the lawyer's licence.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day's department has urged Saudi authorities to overturn the death sentence. Sultan and Mohamed Kohail were detained in January 2007 after a brawl in which an 18-year-old Syrian student died of internal injuries. A third accused, a Jordanian national, has also been sentenced to death.

The fight apparently began when one of the men claimed Sultan had insulted a girl. "I didn't even talk to the girl," Sultan insisted Thursday in an interview with the Canadian Press. He said he was surrounded by a gang of almost a dozen men as he left school that day and that one of them tried to beat him on the head with a stick.

The Kohail family immigrated to Canada from Saudi Arabia in 2000 and had been living in the Montreal suburb of Dollard des Ormeaux before they moved back to their homeland temporarily in 2006.
Posted by:Fred

#7  Would be nice to have the Canadian Human Right Commission take a field trip to this Islamic Paradise on earth for a few years.
Posted by: mhw   2008-04-06 16:06  

#6  These fools didn't learn from another Canuck who had the misfortune to run afoul of the Muzzies. Remember the Iranian/Canadian female reporter who got raped, beaten and murdered in Iran in 2004? In response to the torture and murder of one of its citizens, Canada sent a strong diplomatic note. That scared the Mullahs so badly that IIRC, they didn't even bother responding to it. Formally, that is, although the Mullahs probably grabbed their packages and said something in Farsi like, "I got yuh response RIGHT HERE, INFIDELS!"

I was in Canada at the time and heard Canadians openly admitting that Canada had no choice but to take it because their military weakness meant they had no way to do anything about it. Same thing applies here. The Kohail boys are screwed, quite probably literally so but most assuredly figuratively. The most helpful thing their parents can do for them now is send them a few industrial-size jars of Vaseline.

All the Canucks who come on the 'Burg telling us all about how right-wing Americans are all stupid warmongers should pay attention to the difference in the way Americans and Canucks are treated in Muzzie countries. Americans they may hate, but at least our potential for retaliation is known and feared.

Canucks are also hated as infidels but they're despised as well. Their troops are fighting hard in the small conflict going on in Afghanistan and doing a good job, but it's no secret that A-stan has them stretched to, and probably almost past, their limit. They have nothing with which to put leverage on the Saudis, and both sides know it. Therefore, these Canucks are toast.
Posted by: Pancho Elmeck8414   2008-04-06 10:54  

#5   "In a prior ruling handed down March 3, Kohail's 23-year-old brother, Mohamed, was sentenced to death by beheading for the same incident."

This whole story sounds like concocted crap.
Under Saudi law, as far as I understand it, diyya applies.
If so the blood money to be paid is 100,000 riyals (US$26,667)
The family is probably trying to screw the Canadian Government AKA Canadian taxpayer, into paying the money for them.
Posted by: tipper   2008-04-06 09:55  

#4  "The Kohail family immigrated to Canada from Saudi Arabia in 2000 and ... moved back to their homeland temporarily in 2006."

Here's free clue, dipshits: If you manage to legally get out of a country that thinks beheading is good public policy, DON'T. GO. BACK. For any reason. And definitely don't take your (at least partly) Westernized kids with you.

Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2008-04-06 09:45  

#3  Check out the photo -- he looks like a wimp even for a Canadian. Canada will rally around Sultan because they disagree w/Sharia law when it's enforced in a country other than their own.
Posted by: regular joe   2008-04-06 08:59  

#2  When it was women or pakistani immigrants getting the harsh sharia court sentences, ol' sultan and mohamed kohail prob'ly said "Hear, hear!"
Posted by: M. Murcek   2008-04-06 08:17  

#1  He lived in Canada for six years on the outside, went home and was surprised to learn his involvement in a brawl could result in punishment. Could be my heart is two sizes too small because I could care less what happens to him so long as he and his family never trouble Canada again.
Posted by: Excalibur   2008-04-06 08:03  

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