Okaz/Saudi Gazette

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia’s Attorney General Sheikh Saud Al-Muajab reaffirmed that freedom is the basis and origin of all Saudi rules and regulations.

In an interview with Okaz/Saudi Gazette, he said that curtailing freedom is an exceptional matter. “It is not permissible to impose restrictions on anybody’s actions or arrest or imprison him without a legal basis.”

While emphasizing that the prosecution enjoys complete independence, Sheikh Al-Muajab stated that the Public Prosecution is organizationally linked to the King, and no one has the right to interfere in its work.

“Last year, specialists from the Public Prosecution carried out 48,548 monitoring and inspection tours of prisons, detention centers and social care shelters to verify whether the regulations pertaining to detainees and prisoners are applied in the proper manner as well as to enable them to obtain their legal rights.”

He said that visits to prisons and detention centers might take place at any time without being restricted to the official working hours so as to ensure that no one was imprisoned or detained in an illegal manner.

The Attorney General stressed that the Public Prosecution inspectors enter the detention wards to ascertain that the detainees enjoy their statutory rights.

“The Saudi regulations take care of woman under detention and her right to build a family and have children. The regulations guarantee her the right to pregnancy and childbirth with special medical follow-up, and enable her to take care of her newborn in special wings inside prisons called the mothers’ wing,” he said.

He noted that the oversight mission in places where women are detained is carried out by female colleagues from the Public Prosecution in various regions of the Kingdom.

Sheikh Al-Muajab stressed that it is prohibited to harm the arrested person physically or morally, or subject him to torture or humiliating treatment.

“The accused must be informed, upon arrest or detention, about the reasons for his arrest or detention, and his right to seek the assistance of a lawyer.

“Members of the Public Prosecution would verify the legality of detention of all persons inside detention centers or prisons and verifying that there is no person detained illegally,” he said while reiterating that nobody will be arrested without a causative order from a competent authority.