Scholar’s son says trial pushed back for months after father was due in court as public prosecutor seeks to execute him.

The trial of Saudi Muslim scholar Salman al-Awdah was postponed until December as it was set to begin in an antiterrorism court after nearly two years of pre-trial detention, his son said.

Al-Awdah, who faces the death penalty, was expected to appear in the Criminal Special Court in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, on Sunday.

But his son, Abdullah, said on Twitter the session was postponed for five months.

“Update in regard to the trial of my father in which the Saudi attorney general is seeking death penalty against him because of his activism. The session has been postponed for several months from today,” he said.

It was the second such postponement this year in the case of the cleric, who was arrested in September 2017 as part of a widening crackdown on dissent in the ultraconservative kingdom.

Source: Read Full Article