Saudi faces lashes and jail over 'illicit phone affair'

A Saudi Arabian biochemist and his female research student face prison and flogging if an appeals court rules today that they conducted an "illicit affair" by telephone. Khalid al-Zahrani, 32, was sentenced to eight months in jail and 600 lashes by a lower court in November 2007. His unnamed student was given four months and 350 lashes.

Human rights groups claim the offence with which the pair were charged does not exist under Saudi law. They say they will treat the two as prisoners of conscience if their convictions are upheld.

The former husband of the female student filed a civil case, claiming the research contact was a front for an affair which broke up his marriage. Mr Zahrani has protested his innocence and says he was denied permission to bring lawyers or witnesses to the trial.

The so-called evidence was said to be based on phone calls between a hospital in the south western Saudi city of al-Baha, where Mr Zahrani worked, and the female student's university in Jeddah, between 2002 and 2004. In Saudi Arabia, strict segregation between the sexes is enforced in most cities, and contact between women and men to whom they are not related is rare. "Phone dating" is the most common way for young single Saudis to begin a relationship outside of family ties.

The Independent has learnt that Mr Zahrani has fled Saudi Arabia after contact with three appeal judges who will decide his case. He said in an email that he believes two of the three judges will support the original verdict. "One of the judges is in paradise, the other two are in the fire," he added.

The whereabouts or identity of the female defendant who, under the Saudi system of male guardianship of women, has little legal status in her own right, is not known.

Christoph Wilcke, an expert on Saudi affairs at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said that an "illegal affair" was not defined in Saudi law but added: "The Saudi justice system does not really observe the written law. It's up to the judges."

The Saudi judicial system has been repeatedly criticised in recent months for delivering judgments that international watchdogs see as egregious violations of human rights.

In 2007, a woman was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison for being in a car with a man who was not her husband, and with whom she was later raped by a gang. Saudi law is based on an austere interpretation of the Islamic sharia law.

The Saudi government insists that the kingdom's legal system ensures justice for Muslims and non-Muslims. However, it is in the process of overhauling the courts and the penal code.