Ali Sibat, a Lebanese TV presenter, was accused for witchcraft and sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia on November 9th for giving general life advice and predictions on Lebanese satellite TV. He is a Lebanese citizen and was arrested in Medina last year when he was visiting Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage.

Interestingly, the only evidence presented against him was the claim that he appeared regularly on Lebanese satellite issuing general advice on life and making predictions about the future.

Ali Sibat's death sentence apparently resulted from advice and predictions he gave on Lebanese television. According to Saudi media, in addition to Sibat, Saudi religious police have arrested at least two others for witchcraft in the past month alone.

"Saudi courts are sanctioning a literal witch hunt by the religious police," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The crime of ‘witchcraft' is being used against all sorts of behavior, with the cruel threat of state-sanctioned executions."

Religious police arrested Ali Sibat in his hotel room in Medina on May 7, 2008, where he was on pilgrimage before returning to his native Lebanon. Before his arrest, Sibat frequently gave advice on general life questions and predictions about the future on the Lebanese satellite television station Sheherazade, according to the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar and the French newspaper Le Monde. These appearances are said to be the only evidence against Sibat.

Source: www.hrw.org

This is not the first case for the religious police in Saudi Arabia to arrest and condemn people for witchcraftery. There were two similar cases in last month alone.

It claims a lower court in Jeddah started the trial of a Saudi this month who was arrested by the religious police and said to have smuggled a book of witchcraft into the kingdom.

In another case the religious police are said to have arrested for "sorcery" and "charlatanry" an Asian man accusing him of using supernatural powers to solve marital disputes and induce others to fall in love.

In 2006 a Jeddah court convicted an Eritrean national Muhammad Burhan for "charlatanry" because he possessed a phone book that contained writings in the Tigrinya alphabet used in Eritrea.

Human rights campaigners claim prosecutors classified the booklet as a "talisman" and the court accepted that as evidence, sentencing him to 20 months in prison and 300 lashes.

Source: news.sky.com

Makes you wonder, if it is a usual practise for the religious poilce in Saudi Arabia to arrest and condemn people under the pretext of witch hunt?