Okaz/Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH — The Criminal Court sentenced a Chadian woman and a Yemeni man to a total of six years in prison and 1,000 lashes for abducting a newborn child.

The Chadian woman was sentenced to three years in prison and 500 lashes for kidnapping the newborn child of her ex-husband and leaving him in a taxi.

The Yemeni man was sentenced to three years in prison and 500 lashes as well for attempting to kidnap the child’s mother.

The two — the Chadian woman and her Yemeni accomplice — conspired to kidnap the wife and newborn child of the woman’s ex-husband, the court was told.

The Yemeni man is a taxi driver who helped the Chadian woman by driving her off the crime scene. The two barged into the house of the woman’s ex-husband, tied down his wife after assaulting her and took their newborn child. They had planned to kidnap the wife but the Yemeni man could not carry her all the way to the car so he left her by the stairs.

The ex-husband filed a complaint against the kidnappers claiming that his ex-wife barged into his house, assaulted his wife and kidnapped his newborn.

The man claimed that his ex-wife did that to revenge him for divorcing her and marrying another woman.

The Yemeni taxi driver said he came to know the Chadian woman when he used to drive her around.

She told him that she had promised to give him SR30,000 if he helped her in the kidnap plot.