Riyadh: A Saudi citizen was able to obtain significant financial compensation after wrongly spending more than a year and a half in prison.
As per media reports, a Saudi court upheld a ruling issued by the criminal court to compensate an amount of 800,000 Riyals (more than 1.5 crore Indian rupees) to the man after he was imprisoned for 19 months in a case of which he was later proven innocent.
Newspaper Okaz stated that the court of appeal in the city of Jeddah indicated in its ruling that “the citizen was arrested after being accused in a criminal case, and his innocence was later proven by a final court ruling, which prompted him to file a lawsuit demanding compensation for the damage he sustained as a result of his imprisonment.”
The newspaper, which did not reveal the name and identity of the man who received the compensation, pointed out that the ruling has become final and has acquired the status of estrangement, and therefore has become enforceable.
The court’s decision indicated that the compensation was reparation for the damage suffered by the former convict, without the newspaper providing any details about the crime of which he was convicted or how his innocence was discovered.