MADINA: After 30 months of legal wranglings, a court in Madina has dismissed a lawsuit brought against school teacher Abdul Hakim Al-Oufi for allegedly likening a Turkish television actress to the Ka'ba in a poem. Al-Watan Arabic daily reported Thursday that the judge threw out the case for “lack of evidence that the defendant wrote the poem” which took the actress, known widely in the Arab World as “Lamees” after the character she played in a soap opera, as its subject. Investigators were reportedly unable to make a link between the defendant and the piece, despite several interrogations carried out by various authorities, including the Ministry of Education and the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution (BIP). The poem first appeared on the Internet over two years ago, sparking the ire of many web surfers and prompting an official investigation into the school teacher in Al-Hinakiya. The Minister of Education ordered an investigation by a Madina Education Administration committee, but Al-Oufi denied all knowledge of the verses. The Madina Mayor's Office then looked into the case and passed it on to the BIP who questioned present and former colleagues and relatives of Al-Oufi. The case then went to court in Madina. Al-Oufi, who sought no legal representation in defending himself, maintained his stance that he had no connection to the poem whatsoever. But according to Al-Watan, he described poetry as “metaphorical language” and said that “no one has the right to judge a poet just on his poetry”.
