TV Clairvoyant Sentenced To Death For Sorcery

A television call-in show host who claimed he could predict the future has been sentenced to death for his crimes.

A court in Saudi Arabia found 48 year old Ali Hussain Sibat guilty of witchcraft and sentenced him to death by beheading. Sibat, a Lebanese national ran a phone-in television show broadcast from Beirut. During the show people would call in and ask Sibat questions, he would then predict the future for them and offer advice. It’s the same sort of nonsense that astronomer Russell Grant does on Radio 2 every Monday.

In 2008 Sibat was visiting Saudi Arabia as part of a Islamic religious pilgrimage when he was pounced on by Saudi’s religious police, the Mutawa’een and charged with sorcery. Following a trial in November last year Sibat was found guilty and sentenced to death, the form of execution in Saudi Arabia is decapitation by sword in a public arena.

An appeal was made against the decision, but in Saudi Arabia that means the case is just sent back to the same court with the same judge and gone through again. So on 10th March the same court found Sibat guilty once more and upheld the death sentence. A third appeal is planned, and Amnesty International have asked Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah to stop the execution.

The sentencing judges have released a statement saying that Sibat deserves to be executed for his continual use of black magic. There has been no information released on how Sibat was found guilty of witchcraft, but a large set of scales and a duck may have been necessary tools during the court case.

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