A former Jeddah mayor who has been held in the wake of the Jeddah flood disaster has said to the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution that his representative, who has been accused in the same case, misled him by providing incorrect information that led him to approve requests related to land use. In the former mayor's attestation before the court, he presented the Control and Investigation Board with letters he received from his representative, which he said support his claim. The first trial session for those accused in matters related to the Jeddah floods is expected to start next week, officials said. Judicial Circles expect that charge sheet in other cases against the former mayor, which include bribery, abuse of power and profiting from his position, will be completed in a short period of time. Those documents must be completed in preparation for referring the matter to the judiciary. In a related matter, the Prosecutor General in the CIB has also filed five new charges against the deputy mayor and referred them to the Board of Grievances; the charges include bribery, forgery, abuse of power, tampering with regulations and being preoccupied with trade. According to information obtained by Okaz/Saudi Gazette, a Saudi national whose name is being withheld submitted a letter to the deputy mayor 20 years ago in which he asked to be allowed to own a plot of land in a valley route in eastern Jeddah, which he planned to use for a mosque, and benefit from citizen's plots of land in the valley routes. The deputy mayor supported the citizen's request and sent a letter to then mayor of Jeddah asking that the citizen be allowed to build in those locations without abiding by royal orders issued in 1994, which banned building and owning land in the valley routes, including those in cities. The Jeddah Mayoralty was forced to maintain those locations as required by the royal orders to keep the routes free from obstructions. Plots of land in the valley routes were kept free from any construction, according to the regulations, and the land owners were compensated financially or with other plots owned by the Jeddah Mayoralty. __
