Ali Hussain Sibat
Ali Hussain Sibat is a Lebanese national and former host of the popular call-in show that aired on satellite TV across the Middle East. On the show - described as "a Middle Eastern psychic hot line" by one source{{cite news |title=TV Mystic Lingers in Saudi Jail |author=Michael Slackman |newspaper=The New York Times |date=24 April 2010 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/world/middleeast/25saudi.html?src=mv }} - he made predictions and gave advice to the audience.
In May 2008, he was arrested in Saudi Arabia on charges of "sorcery" while traveling to perform the Umrah pilgrimage. Sibat was sentenced to death by beheading. Following pressure on the Saudi government by the Lebanese government and human rights groups, he was released by the Saudi Supreme Court.{{cite web|title=Muree bin Ali bin Issa al-Asiri, Saudi Arabian Man, Executed For 'Witchcraft And Sorcery'|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/19/saudi-arabia-man-witchcraft-sorcery-executed_n_1609927.html|work=06/19/2012|date=19 June 2012 |publisher=Huffington Post|access-date=19 February 2014}}
Family and career
Ali Hussain Sibat, a Shia Muslim, is the father of four (other reports say five) children.{{cite news |title=Family defends Lebanese psychic jailed in Saudi |author=Scheherezade Faramarzi |newspaper=ABC News |agency=Associated Press |date=9 April 2010 |url=https://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hQ_jb3NeJqD5cjGvkNxW5Jlje9AwD9EVD3I03 }}{{dead link|date=June 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}{{cite news |title=Beheading of Man in Saudi Arabia for Witchcraft Averted |author=Paige Kollock |newspaper=VOA |date=2 April 2010 |url=https://www.voanews.com/a/beheading-of-man-in-saudi-arabia-for-witchcraft-averted-89781397/171923.html |access-date=3 April 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120211011213/http://www.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/Beheading-of-Man-in-Saudi-Arabia-for-Witchcraft-Averted-89781397.html |archive-date=11 February 2012 |url-status=live }} Prior to his arrest, he lived with his family in the eastern Lebanese village al-Ain. His wife, Samira Rahmoon, is a Sunni Muslim.
From Beirut, Sibat hosted a popular call-in show, The Hidden, that aired across the Middle East on the satellite TV channel Sheherazade. On the show Sibat earned US$700 a month predicting the future, giving advice to his audience, casting spells and reciting incantations.{{cite news |title=Lawyer: Beheading planned in Saudi sorcery case |newspaper=CNN |date=1 April 2010 |url=http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/03/31/saudi.arabia.sorcery/index.html }}
Case of sorcery
=Arrest and court proceedings=
In May 2008, Sibat visited Saudi Arabia to perform the Umra pilgrimage to the holy shrines of Saudi Arabia. While Sibat was in the city of Medina, members of the Saudi religious police, the Mutawa'een, recognized him from his television show and then arrested him in his hotel room.{{cite news |title=Lebanese TV host Ali Hussain Sibat faces execution in Saudi Arabia for sorcery |author=James Hider |newspaper=The Times|date=2 April 2010 |url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7085303.ece |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100525071845/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7085303.ece |url-status=dead |archive-date=May 25, 2010 }}
According to The New York Times, Sibat was lured into an "undercover sting operation" while in Medina. He was arrested shortly after the religious police recorded conversations he had with a woman about providing a magical elixir that would force her husband to separate from his second wife.{{cite news|last=SLACKMAN|first=MICHAEL|title=TV Mystic Lingers in Saudi Jail|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/08/saudi-arabias-war-on-witchcraft/278701/|access-date=20 February 2014|newspaper=The New York Times|date=April 24, 2010}}{{cite journal|last=Jacobs|first=Ryan|title=Saudi Arabia's War on Witchcraft|journal=The Atlantic|date=August 19, 2013|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/08/saudi-arabias-war-on-witchcraft/278701/|access-date=20 February 2014}} According to his Lebanese lawyer, May el-Khansa, Sibat confessed only because he was assured that if he did so he would be released.
On 9 November 2009, a court in Medina sentenced Sibat to death on charges of "sorcery" after secret court hearings where he had no legal counsel. The crime of sorcery is not defined in Saudi laws, leading it to be applied in arbitrary ways. Also in 2009, Saudi authorities had arrested dozens of others on such charges.{{cite web |url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/death-sentences-saudi-sorcery-claims-20091210 |title=Death sentences over Saudi 'sorcery' claims |date=10 December 2009 |publisher=Amnesty International |access-date=2 April 2010| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100323133811/http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/death-sentences-saudi-sorcery-claims-20091210| archive-date= 23 March 2010 | url-status= live}}
In January 2010, the Court of Appeal in Makkah accepted an appeal against Sibat's death sentence, on the grounds that it was a premature verdict. On 10 March 2010, a court in Medina upheld the death sentence. According to Amnesty International: "The judges said that he deserved to be sentenced to death because he had practised 'sorcery' publicly for several years before millions of viewers and that his actions 'made him an infidel'." The case was then sent back to the Court of Appeal in Makkah for approval of the death sentence.{{cite web |url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/saudi-arabia-sorcery-death-sentence-upheld-2010-03-18 |title=Saudi Arabia 'sorcery' death sentence upheld |date=18 March 2010 |publisher=Amnesty International |access-date=2010-04-02| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100411163840/http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/saudi-arabia-sorcery-death-sentence-upheld-2010-03-18| archive-date= 11 April 2010 | url-status= live}}
=Scheduled execution=
On Wednesday, March 31, 2010, Sibat's lawyer, May al-Khansa, informed the media that Sibat was to be executed that upcoming Friday April 2 following afternoon prayers. Sibat's case, particularly as his scheduled execution neared, elicited widespread media coverage, appeals by international human rights groups and intervention by several Lebanese government officials.
On Friday though, the execution did not occur. Al-Khansa stated that Lebanon's justice minister told Sibat the execution would not occur that day, though it was still not clear whether the beheading had been waived or only postponed.{{cite news |title=Saudis will not execute TV psychic today |agency=Associated Press |newspaper=San Diego Union-Tribune |date=2 April 2010 |url=https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-lebanese-not-to-be-beheaded-friday-for-witchcraft-2010apr02-story.html }}
=Reactions=
A Boston Globe editorial called Sibat's case "a 21st-century witch trial" and "a travesty of justice."{{cite news |title=A 21st-century witch trial |newspaper=The Boston Globe |date=27 April 2010 |url=http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/04/27/a_21st_century_witch_trial/ }}
In September 2010, Amnesty International called on King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to unconditionally release Sibat and commute his death sentence. If Sibat's death sentence was upheld after his appeal, the decision will be referred to the King for final ratification.{{cite web |url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/saudi-arabian-king-urged-commute-sorcery-death-sentences-2010-10-01 |title=Saudi Arabian King urged to commute "sorcery" death sentences |date=30 September 2010 |publisher=Amnesty International |access-date=3 November 2010| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20101106230252/http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/saudi-arabian-king-urged-commute-sorcery-death-sentences-2010-10-01| archive-date= 6 November 2010 | url-status= live}}
An unnamed Lebanese legal expert talking to a Los Angeles Times reporter speculated that a political clash between Saudi conservatives and the Saudi king was involved in the arrest. "I don't know on what grounds they arrested him, since he didn't commit [the crime] in Saudi, he's not a Saudi citizen, and it wasn't directed against Saudi, and usually one of these criteria must be fulfilled."{{cite web|last=Lutz|first=Meris|title=SAUDI ARABIA: Factional politics may be at heart of legal dispute over psychic's fate|url=http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2010/04/saudi-arabia-lebanese-tv-psychics-death-sentence-stayed.html#sthash.QjHwQ3AL.dpuf|work=April 2, 2010|date=2 April 2010 |publisher=Los Angeles Times|access-date=19 February 2014}}
=Overturning of conviction=
On November 11, 2010, the Saudi Supreme Court said that the death sentence was not warranted because he had not harmed anyone and had no prior offences in the country, according to Okaz, an Arabic Saudi Arabian daily newspaper located in Jeddah quoted by yalibnan.com. The court said his case should be sent back to a lower court in Medina to be retried and "recommended that Sibat, who has spent 30 months in Saudi prison since his May 2008 arrest, be deported".{{cite web|title=Saudi Supreme court rejects Sabat death sentence|url=http://www.yalibnan.com/2010/11/11/saudi-supreme-court-rejects-sabat-death-sentence/|work=November 11, 2010|publisher=yalibnan.com|access-date=19 February 2014}} However as late as October 2011, government officials were reported as saying that Sibat had not been granted a reprieve, though his execution had been delayed. As of March 2012, Sibat was reported to have been released and allowed to return to Lebanon, though "this cannot be independently confirmed", according to Christoph Wilcke (Senior Researcher for the Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch).{{cite web|last=Hilleary|first=Cecily|title=Saudi Arabia Morality Police Declare War on Witches |url=http://middleeastvoices.voanews.com/2012/03/saudi-arabia-morality-police-declare-war-on-witches-10918/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120808030640/http://middleeastvoices.voanews.com/2012/03/saudi-arabia-morality-police-declare-war-on-witches-10918/|url-status=dead|archive-date=August 8, 2012|work=30 March 2012|publisher=Middle East Voices|access-date=20 February 2014}}
References
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Category:Lebanese people imprisoned abroad
Category:Lebanese prisoners sentenced to death
Category:Lebanese television presenters
Category:Lebanese Shia Muslims
Category:Prisoners sentenced to death by Saudi Arabia
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)