For more than two years, Ali Hussain Sibat of Lebanon has been held in a prison in Saudi Arabia, convicted of sorcery and sentenced to death. His head is to be chopped off by an executioner wielding a long, curved sword.
His crime: manipulating spirits, predicting the future, concocting potions and conjuring spells on a call-in television show called “The Hidden” on a Lebanese channel, Scheherazade. It was, in effect, a Middle Eastern psychic hot line.
“Sorcery is the ability to influence matters that affect people’s lives through the use of spirits,” said Abdulaziz AlGasim, a retired Saudi judge. “It is impossible to prove such an act except through confession, and confessions are suspect.”
For more than two years, Ali Hussain Sibat of Lebanon has been held in a prison in Saudi Arabia, convicted of sorcery and sentenced to death. His head is to be chopped off by an executioner wielding a long, curved sword.
His crime: manipulating spirits, predicting the future, concocting potions and conjuring spells on a call-in television show called “The Hidden” on a Lebanese channel, Scheherazade. It was, in effect, a Middle Eastern psychic hot line.
“Sorcery is the ability to influence matters that affect people’s lives through the use of spirits,” said Abdulaziz AlGasim, a retired Saudi judge. “It is impossible to prove such an act except through confession, and confessions are suspect.”
Full story at the New York Times via The Anomalist