Awamiya case: Ex-security man charged with treason

JEDDAH: A former security man who is being tried along with 24 members of the Awamiya terrorist cell has been charged with treason for supporting anti-national elements and participating in rallies against the government.
The defendant has also been charged with attacking, with a machine gun, the Awamiya police station in 2011, enabling suspects to escape, besides hiding arms and ammunition for the other members of the cell, local media reported.
In the first week of Oct. 2011, a group of troublemakers, some of them astride motorcycles and carrying petrol bombs, indulged in rioting, disrupting security in Awamiya, Qatif province.
Fourteen people, including 11 security personnel, were injured in that incident.
The Specialized Criminal Court has resumed the trial against the 24 defendants, who have been charged with assaulting security men and citizens, damaging public and private property, looting shops and stealing money, possession of arms and ammunition and attempting to spread chaos and destabilize security.
According to the report in local media, one of the members of the cell (defendant number 13) has been charged with nearly 400 counts, following a total of 53 court sessions. New details have revealed that defendant number 16, the former security man who has been charged with treason, is the elder brother of one of the wanted men on the list of 23 wanted terrorists issued by the Ministry of Interior.
The other charges against the former security man include returning weapons to defendant number 12 without a license with the intention of promoting domestic instability, a crime punishable under paragraph (b) of Article 34 of the Weapons and Ammunition regulations.
The charges against defendant number 13 include involvement in an attack on a security patrol in Qatif, resulting in the death of a security man and the injury of another, as well as firing with a machine gun at two security patrols in Seihat, throwing Molotov cocktail at a security patrol in Awamiya, covering up for wanted criminals, armed attack and robbery of nearly SR2.2 million from a bank’s money transfer vehicle, and looting a number of commercial shops at gunpoint.