The General Court in Makkah has taken possession of a teacher's salary to pay off his debts of SR385,000, a solution which the defendant agreed was preferable to further imprisonment. The teacher, who was jailed several months ago after failing to repay loans, was given a choice in court of further imprisonment or relinquishing his entire salary to the court in order to pay off his creditors. The man appealed to the court to consider his circumstances, saying that he lived with his wife and son in a rented apartment and also had to pay installments on a car. Lawyer Hatim Al-Shadhwi said that the Civil Service rules did not permit withholding of more than a third of a monthly net salary other than for alimony dues. The court ruled that SR2,500 deducted from the SR9,100 total salary each month would be used to repay a bank while the remainder would be divided between five creditors or the bank until all the man's debts were settled.
