Family relieved Canadian government is stepping in

BY RAFFY BOUDJIKANIAN

raffy.boudjikanian@transcontinental.ca

As former Dollard des Ormeaux resident Mohamed Kohail, 23, spends his days in a Saudi prison waiting to find out if an appeal to that country's justice system will save him from decapitation, his family is reportedly happy to find out that the Canadian government has at least said it will do something for one of its citizens abroad.

"They are more relaxed," said Maurice Mansour, a Montreal man who is a friend of the Kohails and has been taking care of their business while they are away. "They feel better after learning that the government of Canada will be involved with this," he added.

Residents of Canada since 2000 and citizens since 2005, the Kohails moved to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia two years ago. At a school there, Mohamed Kohail's younger brother, Sultan, 16, got into an argument with a female classmate, who called her older brother, Munzer Haraki, for help.

Reportedly, Sultan called Mohamed for back-up himself. The older Kohail brother and a group of friends allegedly got into a fight with Haraki and some friends of his own. Haraki died during the brawl.

"You know, (Haraki) had a heart condition," said Mansour, as revealed by a coroner's autopsy. He suggested this is why Haraki died. The Arabic newspaper, Okaz, stated Haraki hit his head on the wall after being punched in the face and collapsed, never to get up again.

"The trial was like a comedy," Mansour charged, explaining that Kohail and his defence lawyer were barred from even attending most of it, and the young man was forced to sign a confession in order to have the right to appeal his death sentence.

The Saudi Arabian justice system is based on Muslim Sharia law, which calls for either "capital punishment or financial compensation" in the case of homicide, according to professor Rudolph Peters, a visiting scholar at Harvard University's Islamic Legal Studies program. "There must be criminal intent proven in court," he added, expressing doubt that this could happen in case of a fistfight.

According to Mansour, the Kohails are now claiming that Haraki had ties with some members of the Saudi royal family, which is why trial proceedings may have been skewed unfavourably toward Mohamed.

It is possible that ruling families may exercise certain pressure on courts in some cases, said Peters, but he did not know whether this is what could have happened with the Kohails.

"He never causes any problems," said Mansour about Mohamed, calling him a very nice youth.

The family's Dollard home appeared to have no signs of activity last Friday, a large, unbroken pile of snow covering its porch, neglected mail peeking over the mailbox cover.

Neighbours of the Kohails seemed not to know much about them. "They're very discrete," said one man on condition of anonymity, adding he had been living in the area for a long time and that it was one of the few homes he knew nothing about. "It's really too bad," he said about Mohamed Kohail's death sentence.

Another neighbour said they barely communicated to each other as well.

"There's someone who comes and cleans the snow sometimes," she said, and she added she has seen news vans come to grab footage of the place.