Ali al-Nimr’s sentence was reduced to 10 years in prison on Sunday by the Specialized Criminal Court, according to human rights group Reprieve.
His father, Mohammed al-Nimr, who attended the meeting in Riyadh, said his 26-year-old son should be released in eight or nine months after spending more than nine years. ” from youth and part of childhood ”in prison.
The nephew of Nimr al-Nimr’s executive cleric, Ali al-Nimr, was arrested in 2012 at the age of 17 for participating in protests calling for social and political reforms in Qatif province in Saudi Arabia. He was sentenced to death.
Subsequently, a court convicted him of charges of belonging to a terrorist cell, attacking police with Molotov cocktails, inciting and supporting sectarianism, according to state media.
Anyone who has received a death sentence after being convicted of crimes he or she committed as a minor would face up to 10 years in prison in a juvenile detention facility, according to a statement from the Human Rights Commission. (HRC), supported by the state. time.
“My family and I are happy. I hope that all those arrested in my country and elsewhere (will be) released,” his father told CNN after Sunday’s ruling. However, he explained that he would have liked his son to be acquitted by the judges “because he is in fact innocent”.
“His health is good, but he has been in prison for more than nine years. He has spent more than seven years with the threat of execution hanging over his head every day, every hour and every minute. After the verdict, he “From now on, he is looking forward to freedom,” he added.
When the royal decree was announced last April, it was hoped that several men from the Shiite minority in the country, who had committed crimes as minors, could be exempted from the death penalty. Ali al-Nimr is the most prominent of them – UN experts and human rights organizations have previously urged the Saudi authorities to overturn his death sentence.
“It is strange to talk about progress when a young man spent almost a decade on death row because he took part in a peaceful demonstration, but today’s ruling is clearly a positive step. Ali al-Nimr should now be released later. “But the real change is not about a few high-profile cases; it means making sure no one is sentenced to death for a ‘childhood crime’ again in Saudi Arabia,” said Reprieve director Maya. Foa.
The organization called for the urgent application of the royal decree for the cases of other young people still facing the death penalty, including Abdullah al-Zaher, Dawood al-Marhoon and Mohammed al-Faraj.