An Australian man’s pilgrimage to Mecca has left him facing 500 lashes and a year in jail. Mansor Almaribe, a 45-year-old Shiite Muslim, was hit with the penalty on a blasphemy charge. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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The father of five was in Medina, Saudi Arabia, en route to Mecca when he was arrested three weeks ago. Almaribe suffers from diabetes, heart disease, and lingering back problems from a 2004 car accident, The Age newspaper reported.
His family is afraid he might not survive the punishment.
“He couldn’t survive 50 lashes, let alone 500 lashes,” Almaribe’s son, Isaam, told the Herald Sun.
Almaribe has not been able to secure a lawyer in Saudi Arabia due to the steep fees.
What exactly Almaribe did to end up in jail remains murky.
Riad al-Keffai, who was with him at the time, contends the charge was cooked up by a Sunni “radical” with an ax to grind against Shiites, a minority in Saudi Arabia.
Al-Keffai told The Age that Almaribe “was just praying and reading the Koran to himself in an area known to be frequented by Shiites” at the time of his arrest.
Australian officials are appealing to Saudi Arabia for leniency in his case, reports said.
