RIYADH: A Saudi official has said that there are 31 Saudi nationals currently being held in prisons in the United Arab Emirates facing accusations concerning financial, criminal, and behavioral offenses. Some are also being held over traffic accidents. An official from the Saudi Nationals Department at the Kingdom's Consulate in Dubai said that financial cases concerned writing bad checks and failures to pay wages. “The embassy has appointed a lawyer to pursue the cases of prisoners and complete legal proceedings,” he said. Saud Azaya of the embassy's Saudi Nationals' Affairs, meanwhile, said that Saudi prisoners' situations in the UAE were being closely followed and that the embassy arranged through coordination with prison authorities family visits twice a week. “The embassy has assisted in one case of a Saudi charged with negligence in a motor accident in which his wife was killed and public property damaged,” Azaya said. “He was fined SR16,000, and the embassy secured his exit from the Emirates after his children and family waived the blood money.” He said the embassy had also helped secure the release of a man held because a pistol was found in his luggage by scanning equipment. “He had forgotten it was there, and the embassy requested a pardon as he was not carrying it with any criminal intention,” Azaya said. The embassy also secured the return to the Kingdom of a Saudi whose passport had expired by the time of his release from prison and was unable to leave the country. “We wrote to the security authorities in the Emirates and requested their assistance, and the problem was solved,” Azaya said.
