Genie and the ‘innocent’ judge
the saudi penal court has ruled in the media case known as the ‘judge of jinn’, which includes 38 defendants. the sentences ranged from innocence to 20 years imprisonment for the three main defendants in the case – a judge and his two advisers.
the case goes back to 2016 when a judge was acquitted in a case that is seen as the strongest in the history of the saudi judiciary, and possibly the world, when the judge allegedly embezzled 600 million riyals through bribery, forgery, and exploitation of his job, when he claimed, in defense of himself, that he did not understand what he was doing and claimed he was possessed by a genie and that he spoke and acted on behalf of the genie.
after presenting the issue to one of the most famous reciter of ruqyah al shariah to get rid of this jinn he confirmed that the jinn is responsible for everything done by the judge and that the genie is the real culprit in the charges of corruption, and accordingly the administrative court in madinah at the time did not convict the judge of financial and administrative corruption or embezzlement of that huge sum of money.
the verdict came as a shock to the human mind at that time. many have long intervened to stop a major farce. then three years later the kingdom’s authorities decided to retry the ‘judge of the genie’, and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison with immediate effect.
unfortunately, the verdict was not based on what the reciter of ruqyah al shariah said that the real suspect should have been put behind bars for 20 years.
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the following headlines made the cover of lebanon’s al-ahrar illustrated, a lebanese literary, cultural, and comic-fiction magazine. although its license does not state that it is political, all its headlines are politically tinted such as:
• elections and boycotts of parliament challenged in their legitimacy
• discuss the abolition of political sectarianism in the constitution
• the debate about the dictatorship of the council
• the fall of the price of the lebanese pound
• parliamentary split over holding municipal elections
• the rent law is controversial
• the problem of naturalization of migrants
• debate on the lebanese-palestinian border
• the country’s funds between thefts and fires
it seems at first glance that the front page of the magazine speaks about the events of the hour in lebanon, but through more careful reading one would find that the date of publication of the magazine dates back to 1927, a weekly magazine published by gebran tueni, founder of the daily, in 1926, and did not last for more than two years!
what is surprising is today’s lebanese news looks like the replica of lebanon 92 years ago. therefore, who believes that the situation of lebanon will change for the better, unfortunately, is day-dreaming.
