By Khalaf Al-Harbi
Okaz newspaper
THE relationship between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Egypt doesn’t need flowery words simply because there are more than one million Egyptians living in the Kingdom and hundreds of thousands of Saudis residing in Egypt.
This reflects the depth of the relationship between the two countries and their people. Added to this is the unwritten political, military and commercial alliance between the two countries. The close relationship has just been cemented even further with the announcement of the causeway project.
Announced in the past few days, the ambitious causeway initiative will link the two countries over land. Unfortunately, some Egyptians have forgotten our shared history and mutual interests by throwing insults in our direction over the Al-Jizawee case. Their contention being that the Saudi government has somehow masterminded this incident!
Let us consider the evidence which makes a mockery of this fanciful fiction. Firstly, the Egyptian Ambassador to the Kingdom has exhibited the contraband Al-Jizawee was caught with on a Satellite TV Channel. Secondly, the Egyptian consul in Jeddah has confirmed Al-Jizawee has signed a written confession. Thirdly, the statement made by the Egyptian legal advisor Muhmoud Al-Refai who said Al-Jizawee admitted that a company asked him to deliver the pills but he didn’t know that they were forbidden in the Kingdom.
All this documented evidence has embarrassed those who were involved in the slander against the Kingdom. The fact that the source of the libellous claims were intellectuals and political elite is even more disappointing. Thankfully some of them have since considered the emphatic evidence and proffered their apologies.
Looking forward the authorities must enforce the law against Al-Jizawee. He must be tried like any other common criminal for trying to smuggle narcotics into the Kingdom. Whether he gets branded as a political hero in his home country is irrelevant. We must do the right thing.
If on the other hand we submit to the Egyptian’s media blackmail and relax the law on Al-Jizawee, then we deserve all the insults which our Egyptian brethren direct toward us.
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