Saudi Arabia: Woman discovers she is divorced from her husband after his death

Dubai: A Saudi woman reportedly discovered she had been divorced by her husband only after he died.

According to media reports, the woman filed a lawsuit with the Court of Appeal in Mecca against her deceased husband’s sons, demanding that her name be added to the inheritance deed. To her surprise, she found that she had been divorced from her late husband without her knowledge.

Although the defendants acknowledged their father was married to the complainant, they said he divorced her before the consummation of their marriage and that they did not agree to include her name in the list of heirs.

The plaintiff, according to Al Watan newspaper, admitted the deceased had no intimate relations with her but denied being divorced from him, adding that she got married to him under a valid legal contract, and she was still his wife until death.

She claimed that her name was not included in the inheritance deed and that her late husband’s son refused to hand her the marriage contract or any papers belonging to her, adding that “her late husband fell into a coma a year before his death.”

The defendants argued their father had divorced the woman before being admitted to hospital and brought two witnesses who testified that the deceased divorced the plaintiff and that she knew about it although she keeps on denying it.

The witnesses presented a paper containing the fingerprint of the deceased, in which he wrote that he had divorced her. Accordingly, the judge issued a final ruling, which stipulated that “the divorce of the wife is true and valid and accordingly she is entitled to no inheritance".