Manama: A court in Al Khobar in Eastern Saudi Arabia has given a Lebanese national one week to prepare a response to charges of encouraging a young Saudi woman to convert to Christianity and leave her country.
The Lebanese man and his lawyer attended a new hearing on Saturday in which the attorney of the woman’s family presented his arguments, local Arabic daily Al Sharq reported.
The father had accused the Lebanese former insurance director of abusing of his position to influence his daughter, an employee at the company, trying to convert her to Christianity and leave Saudi Arabia for another country.
The woman reportedly left for Lebanon where she remained for some time before moving to Turkey and later to Sweden. Reports that she went to Britain were not confirmed.
According to the Saudi media, the woman has told her family over the phone that she regretted leaving her homeland and that she was forced to stay with the people who looked after her. The woman said that she had been warned of being killed if she returned to Saudi Arabia.
The family told the media that they had pledged in writing not to harm her and that they wanted her to return home.A video-taped interview conducted by a pro-Christianity TV allegedly with the woman was posted on a social network, but it was later revealed that the girl, whose lower part of the face was covered, was not the Saudi woman. The case was made public after the woman’s father filed a suit against a Saudi and Lebanese man for their alleged influence on her to convert to Christianity and their role in facilitating her departure from Saudi Arabia. The two men were arrested and released on bail, but the Lebanese was re-arrested.
