Legal consultation: by Abdelaal A Khalil Thursday, 23 June 2011 00:52

Question: A person is working with a contracting company and wants to leave the country under emergency circumstances and requested the company to issue an exit permit, but the company rejected that and he is forced to leave. What can he do and what authority can he approach to leave country?

Answer: Law No. 4/2009, concerning the regulation of entry and exit of expatriates and their residences and sponsorships, states that expatriates are not permitted to leave the country temporarily and permanently without submission of exit permit by the sponsor.
This permit, if could not be obtained by the expatriate, is replaced by presenting exit warrant or a certificate indicating of no judgment under process or claim cases are filed against the expatriate to be issued by the competent courts after fifteen days of announcement in two daily newspapers of the date of expatriate’s departure from the country in accordance with procedures and restrictions issued by the Minister of Interior.
In view of the above, the inquirer shall approach the competent department at the Ministry of Interior to present an exit warrant or to publish leave announcement in two daily newspapers which should carry the full name, nationality and residence number with his intent to leave the country and the competent department and the Ministry of Interior will receive any claims against the said party within maximum period of two weeks of the date of announcement.
After the elapse of two weeks of the announcement date, the inquirer shall request the competent court to issue a certificate of no judgment under execution or claim cases against him and present it to the competent department at the Ministry of Interior in order to have the required exit permit.

Question: What is the penalty of hiding things obtained from a crime and what are the cases of exemption of penalty?

Answer: Law No. 11 of 2004, concerning hiding things obtained from a crime says that a person who has or hides things obtained from a crime and he knows that without being a partner in such crime shall be penalized with the decided penalty for this crime.
The penalty will be jail for maximum six months with fine of no more than three thousand riyals or one of the two penalties if the accused does not know that the things are taken due to a crime, but he took them with a belief that they are obtained from illegal source.
The accused who hid things from a crime shall be exempted from the penalty if they report the crime and the perpetrators to the competent authorities before detecting it.
If the report occurs after the detection of the crime, the court may exempt the accused when the report leads to arrest any of the perpetrators.
No trial shall be executed against the person hiding things obtained from crime hurting his wife, origins or descendants without a complaint by the victim.
The victim shall abandon the complaint in any phase of the case and has the right to stop the execution of the final judgment against the criminal at any time the former wants.