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Canada contacts Saudi Arabia over death sentence

Ottawa said on Tuesday that it was "profoundly disappointed" by Saudi Arabia's sentencing of a Canadian national to death by beheading after he was found guilty of a schoolyard murder. "We are profoundly disappointed" with the verdict by Saudi authorities, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier said.

He said in an interview with public broadcaster network CBC that he and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper were keeping in contact with Saudi officials about the verdict.

He also said that Ottawa "is going to help the family to appeal" the decision within an 80-day deadline.

Bernier's spokesman Neil Hrab later said "we will be seeking clemency" from the Saudi authorities, without providing details.

PRESSURE

The ruling has sparked anger among the Canadian opposition, which called on the government to take action.

Canada, which abolished the death penalty in 1976, has routinely called on governments to commute the death sentences of its nationals.

But Harper's conservative government has modified the position by announcing it will no longer automatically demand such clemency from foreign governments.

Last year it notably refused to intervene in the case of Ronald Allen Smith, a Canadian on death row in the US.

Mohamed Kohail, 23, of Palestinian heritage, was arrested in January last year and charged with killing a Syrian youth during a schoolyard brawl in Jeddah.

His now 17-year-old brother Sultan was also held in connection to the death, but has been released.

According to news reports, the brothers and other Palestinian youths faced off against a group of Syrian youths in a brawl at Edugates International School in a posh suburb of Jeddah, where Sultan had begun studying.

Mohamed Kohail came to the defense of his younger brother, who had been accused of insulting a Syrian girl.

UNLUCKY PUNCH

Kohail allegedly punched a Syrian boy, Munzer Haraki, who, according to press reports, hit his head against a fence, fell to the ground and died instantly.

Kohail told the Toronto-based Globe and Mail newspaper last year that after being arrested he had been slapped and mistreated while being interrogated about the incident and forced to sign a false confession.

Kohail said he had been unaware that the beating victim had died and was charged with murder only after having signed a confession.

Until last year, Kohail had lived with his family in a Montreal suburb, but returned to Saudi Arabia, where he was born, when his sister became ill, he said.

The entire family, which was granted Canadian citizenship in 2005, moved back to Saudi Arabia.
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