For nearly three and a half years, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been conducting a single mock trial of the historical researcher Hassan Farhan Al-Maliki and Sheikh Salman Al-Awda, in the Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh, which the government claims was established specifically to hear cases of terrorism and state security cases.
The story of the two men dates back to September 2017, when Saudi Arabia launched a fierce campaign of arrests that targeted dozens of sheikhs, intellectuals and academics in the country, including al-Maliki and al-Awdah. Nearly one year later (September and October 2018), the Public Prosecution requested the death penalty in two separate trials.
On a related note, the Public Prosecution also demanded the execution of two other men who were victims of the September 2017 arrest campaign, Dr. Ali Al-Omari and Sheikh Awad Al-Qarni.
Sheikh Salman al-Awda faces 37 charges, according to the official Sabq newspaper. Most notably: corruption in the land by repeatedly seeking to destabilize the building of the homeland and revive blind strife, inciting society against the rulers and stirring up unrest, linking up with personalities and organizations, and holding meetings and conferences inside and outside the Kingdom, to achieve the agenda of the terrorist Brotherhood against the homeland and its rulers. In addition, the call and incitement to involve the Kingdom in internal revolutions and supporting revolutions in the Arab countries.
As for researcher Hassan al-Maliki, he faces 14 charges, most of which relate to his historical and religious views that differ with the official religious institution which is known for its extremism. Among them: criticism of the actions of some of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and his family and grant them peace, conducting several television interviews with foreign newspapers and interviews with channels “hostile” to the kingdom (Al-Jazeera and Al-Alam TV), describing the official Council of Senior Scholars as extremism, authoring a number of books and researches and publishing it outside the Kingdom, possessing 348 books not licensed by the competent authority, participating in some meetings that take place through the so-called diwaniyas, and speaking through them with his “perverted” ideas hostile to the Kingdom’s government, and challenging the Prophet’s Sunnah.
The Specialized Criminal Court postponed several sessions of the two trials of Al-Maliki and his return for undisclosed reasons, but apparently not related to the application of the conditions of a fair trial and a commitment to accuracy in issuing judgments, but rather with the search for an appropriate political timing to issue violent sentences against them. So far, twenty-one sessions have been held for the owners, thirteen of which were adjourned without presenting pleadings or conducting any deliberations. As for Sheikh Al-Awda, the court postponed four sessions for him, out of fourteen sessions.
Although three and a half years have passed since the start of their trial and the demand to kill them on charges not classified as crimes in international law, the court has not issued a preliminary ruling against them so far.
According to the organization tracking of the progress of trials in Saudi Arabia, this period of time in the court of first instance is very long and does not correspond to the usual time period for trials in the country. The organization reviewed four cases of people who faced demands for the death penalty in different months of 2019, and the duration of their trial in the Court of first instance ranged from four months to nearly a year and a half. Three of them were executed by Saudi Arabia on March 12 of this year, in a major massacre of 81 people, while the fourth person was executed on October 5, 2021.
The first quarter of this year witnessed an unprecedented rise in the use of the death penalty, as the executed cases amounted to 117 cases, which indicates the possibility of reaching Saudi Arabia - this year - to record numbers that the country has not reached in its history, if it proceeds with executions at the same pace. This is despite Mohammed bin Salman's statements to The Atlantic magazine to get rid of the death penalty in the country, except for cases in which the accused face charges related to committing murders. At least 30 people are still facing the death penalty, including five minors.
This bloody escalation raises fears for the lives of all those facing execution demands by the Public Prosecution, especially researcher Hassan Farhan al-Maliki and Sheikh Salman al-Awda, whose trials Saudi Arabia is deliberately prolonging significantly.
The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights believes that the repeated postponement of the Al-Awda and Al-Maliki trials is clear evidence of the lack of an independent judiciary in the country. ESOHR also see that Saudi Arabia is determined to use the death penalty as a political tool in order to intimidate and suppress opinion leaders and opponents, and that it is taking advantage of the world's preoccupation with the Russian war on Ukraine to pass its extremely unfair sentences at the least cost to its reputation.