Ali Hussain Sibat is a Lebanese national and former host of the popular call-in show that aired on satellite TV across the Middle East.
[3] From Beirut, Sibat hosted a popular call-in show, The Hidden, that aired across the Middle East on the satellite TV channel Sheherazade.
While Sibat was in the city of Medina, members of the Saudi religious police, the Mutawa'een, recognized him from his television show and then arrested him in his hotel room.
He was arrested shortly after the religious police recorded conversations he had with a woman about providing a magical elixir that would force her husband to separate from his second wife.
[5] Sibat's case, particularly as his scheduled execution neared, elicited widespread media coverage, appeals by international human rights groups and intervention by several Lebanese government officials.
Al-Khansa stated that Lebanon's justice minister told Sibat the execution would not occur that day, though it was still not clear whether the beheading had been waived or only postponed.
[16] As of March 2012, Sibat was reported to have been released and allowed to return to Lebanon, though "this cannot be independently confirmed", according to Christoph Wilcke (Senior Researcher for the Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch).