RIYADH — The Special Criminal Court in Riyadh sentenced a Saudi owner of a satellite channel, convicted of triggering sedition and unleashing malicious campaign against Saudi Arabia through a television program, to 12 years in jail. The court also imposed on him a travel ban for 20 years, besides blocking him from appearing in any means of media in future. The judge ruled that the convict, identified by local media as, Wajdi Al-Ghazzawi, tried to create sedition in the society and inflicted damage to the Kingdom's image by claiming that terrorism and Al-Qaeda are its products and that the Kingdom humiliated foreigners and deprived of their rights. The court also found that the man sent clippings of the program through the Internet and contacted an agency hostile to the Kingdom and received an amount estimated at $1.8 million from it. The convict can appeal the verdict within 30 days. — SG
