The Madina Administrative Court on Sunday ordered the Passports Department in the city to pay an expatriate and his family SR165,000 for unfairly imprisoning them for over three months. The expatriate, his wife and son were jailed after their Saudi sponsor reported them as ‘huroob' (runaway) . The sponsor had made the false declaration in the media and to the Passports Department because he did not want to pay the expatriate his financial entitlements, according to the expatriate's representative, Khaled Bin Obeid Al-Amri. Okaz/Saudi Gazette has a copy of the verdict which says: “The Madina Passports Department did not comply with the directives of the Madina Emirate and unfairly imprisoned the expatriate, his wife and son before completing the procedures which stipulate that the expatriate should receive all his financial entitlements, as per the country's laws and the letter number 2/14099 dated Dec. 12, 2008 sent by the Emirate to the Passports Department.” “Although my client told the Passports Department that he filed a complaint against the sponsor because the latter did not pay him his financial entitlements, the department arrested him, his wife and son and put them in prison for over three months,” said Al-Amri. After completing the procedures of the case against the sponsor at the Labor Office, a case was filed against the Madina Passports Department at the Administrative Court. “I asked the court to compensate my client financially and morally for the wrong procedures taken by the Passports Department. The Administrative Court found that the department made a mistake. Therefore the court ordered that my client, his wife and his son be paid SR165,000 in compensation for being unfairly imprisoned,” the lawyer said. __
