King pardons two Egyptian doctors

King pardons two Egyptian doctors Arab News

JEDDAH/CAIRO: Two Egyptian doctors sentenced to prison and lashes in the Kingdom for illegally selling pharmaceuticals have returned home after being pardoned by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, the state news agency reported Friday. The two arrived in Cairo late Thursday, the MENA news agency said. The royal amnesty came following a meeting between King Abdullah and President Hosni Mubarak in Riyadh on Tuesday. Egyptian media welcomed the king's decision. Raouf Amin Al-Arabi and Shawki Ibrahim, the doctors, thanked King Abdullah and President Mubarak for the gesture. "It was the most happy moment in my life when I heard the news of the royal pardon," Ibrahim said after arriving in Cairo on a flight from Jeddah. He said the interior minister issued an order to release us within 24 hours. Al-Arabi was accused of driving a Saudi woman "to addiction" and was initially sentenced in Nov. 2008 to seven years in prison and 700 lashes. Following his appeal, the Saudi judge upheld the conviction and more than doubled the penalty — to 15 years in prison and 1,500 lashes. Ibrahim was sentenced to 20 years in prison and an unspecified number of lashes for selling drugs and having "illicit affairs" with his female patients. The arrest of the two doctors created an uproar in Egypt. At the height of the uproar, the Egyptian government briefly banned Egyptian physicians from working in the Kingdom. The work ban was lifted after a month following what Egypt described as assurances from the Saudi government that Egyptian doctors would get contracts guaranteeing treatment equal to that of their Saudi counterparts. Saudi Arabia is home to more than seven million foreign workers including a large number of Egyptians employed in sectors such as oil, business, health and engineering. The Health Affairs Department in Makkah said in a statement published in November 2008 that the charges against the two doctors' included theft, trafficking and misuse of narcotics.