03 April 2008 :

a Saudi court threatened the lawyer of a Canadian man who is facing a public beheading after the advocate submitted a bid to appeal the death sentence. Mohamed Kohail's lawyer was ejected from the court in Jidda after tabling a 27-page document before the same judges who rendered the execution order on March 3. "The judge kicked the advocate out, they obtained a copy of his permit and they're threatening him, to revoke his licence," said Mahmoud Al-Ken, a friend of the Kohail family. "The court was not public. It lacks transparency." Mohamed Kohail, 23, and his brother Sultan, 17, were detained in January 2007 after a schoolyard brawl in which one of the men involved died of internal injuries. A third man, a Saudi national, was also charged. Sultan Kohail was freed on bail the following July but Mohamed was convicted of murder and sentenced to death on March 3 of this year.