Cairo: A Saudi court has given an Egyptian doctor six months in prison and barred him from working in the kingdom and other Gulf countries after finding him guilty of carrying out botched circumcision operations.
The Islamic Sharia Court in the western Saudi city of Al Madinah also ordered Abdullah Hamzah, a specialist in ear, nose and throat infections, of paying a fine of 100,000 Saudi riyals (Dh97,936).
Families of seven new-born boys have accused Hamzah of causing damage to their children after carrying out circumcision on them in a private clinic.
The court said that he will not be allowed to leave the kingdom before relevant compensation lawsuits are handled, depending on damage caused to each case.
Hamzah protested the ruling, which was passed on Sunday and said he had not been able to hire a defence lawyer, the Egyptian official Middle East News Agency (mena) reported.
“It is regrettable that he was not able to have a lawyer because his identification papers have been withheld by the medical centre where he worked,” Ahmad Zaki, the head of the Egyptian community in Al Madina, told mena.
Zaki, who attended the hearing on behalf of the Egyptian consulate, added that he had asked the court to order recruiting a lawyer for Hamzah. He did not say what the court’s response was.
Mena said the court also ordered the closure of the medical centre, where Hamzah worked, for two months and to pay a fine of 100,000 riyals. The ruling can be appealed.
There was no immediate comment from the Egyptian authorities.
The verdict comes months after another Saudi court sentenced an Egyptian human rights lawyer to five years in prison and 300 lashes on charges of smuggling drugs into the kingdom, a case that briefly strained ties between the two countries.
