BEIRUT — The lawyer of a Lebanese TV psychic who was convicted in Saudi Arabia for witchcraft said Thursday her client could be beheaded this week and urged Lebanese and Saudi leaders to help spare his life.
Attorney May al-Khansa said she learned from a judicial source that Ali Sibat is to be beheaded today. Saudi judicial officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
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A Lebanese official said Beirut has received no word from its embassy in Riyadh about Sibat’s possible execution.
The Saudi justice system, which is based on Islamic law, does not clearly define the charge of witchcraft.
Sibat is one of scores of people reported arrested every year in the kingdom for practicing sorcery, witchcraft, black magic and fortunetelling. The practices are considered polytheism in Saudi Arabia, a deeply religious Muslim country.
Al-Khansa said she has called upon Saudi King Abdullah to pardon Sibat, a 49-year-old father of five. She also says she is in contact with Lebanese officials about the case.
She added that Sibat did not make predictions in Saudi Arabia and was neither a citizen nor a resident and should have been deported rather than tried.
Sibat made predictions on an Arab satellite TV channel from his home in Beirut. He was arrested by the Saudi religious police during his pilgrimage to the holy city of Medina in May 2008 and sentenced to death last November.
Later Thursday, a dozen people demonstrated near the Saudi embassy in Beirut’s western neighborhood of Qureitim. Four of the men wore masks to look like executioners and carried a wooden gallows with a cloth bag hanging from it.
One of the men carried a small banner that read in Arabic: “Don’t kill.”
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