Court of Appeal Upholds Acquittal of Woman in Kidnapping, Extortion, and Coercion Case
The first and second defendants sentenced to four years’ imprisonment with hard labor, and one of them to be deported after serving the sentence
The Court of Appeal upheld the acquittal of a female defendant in a case involving charges of detention, extortion, coercion to sign promissory notes, and theft of a civil ID card, rejecting the Public Prosecution’s appeal against her. Meanwhile, it increased the penalties for the first and second defendants, sentencing them to four years’ imprisonment with hard labor.
The court ruled to accept the appeals filed by the Public Prosecution and the first and second defendants on procedural grounds, and on the merits, to modify the appealed judgment by overturning the previous decision that had refrained from imposing punishment. It sentenced the first and second defendants to four years’ imprisonment with hard labor for the charges linked to them, and ordered the deportation of the second defendant from the country after serving the sentence, while upholding the rest of the judgment.
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The Public Prosecution had previously charged the first and second defendants and the third female defendant with detaining the victim inside a majlis (reception hall) belonging to one of the defendants, threatening him with a weapon, and coercing him into signing three promissory notes worth 30,000 dinars. They were also accused of seizing his civil ID card with the intent to financially extort him. The fourth female defendant was charged with threatening the victim via the WhatsApp application to demand money based on those promissory notes.
During the appeal proceedings, lawyer Abdullah Al-Alanda, acting as counsel for the third female defendant, upheld the validity of the first-instance judgment that acquitted his client. He argued that the elements of criminal complicity were absent and that there was no conclusive evidence proving her involvement in the alleged crimes, emphasizing that the case file contained no evidence linking her to the acts of coercion, detention, or extortion.
