Crime in Saudi Arabia
Despite strict laws, however, illicit trafficking takes place in considerable amounts through underground channels especially marijuana, cocaine and homegrown psychedelic drugs.
From 2000 to 2004, when a number of expatriate workers were killed in car bombings, questions arose over the seriousness and sincerity of Saudi efforts to prevent or investigate attacks.
Before May 2003, the only public statements of any investigation or prosecution of attacks were Saudi accusations against the (mainly British) western expatriates themselves.
Saudis arrested and detained several, claiming they were 'alcohol traders' fighting a turf war over the illegal distribution of alcohol.
According to author Thomas Hegghammer, "today, few outside Saudi Arabia believe that alcohol traders carried out the bombings", as the suspects were well-paid professionals with no prior record of violent crime, no forensic evidence was provided against them, and attacks of a very similar nature on western nationals continued despite the arrests of the alleged perpetrators.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) of the Government of Australia claimed they received reports that terrorists are masterminding attacks against assets belonging to the Government of Saudi Arabia, oil infrastructure, aviation infrastructure, embassies, hotels, shopping malls and many Western interests such as residential housing complexes, gatherings of foreign tourists for recreational or cultural activities etc.
DFAT further stated "Terrorist attacks could occur at any time, anywhere in Saudi Arabia, including in Riyadh, Khobar, and other major cities".
The effects that Saudi Arabia terrorist rehabilitation program targets are as follows: authorization, isolation, training, and dehumanization.
[28] The Saudi legal system is based on Sharia or Islamic law and thus often prohibits many activities that are not crimes in other nations, such as alcohol or pork consumption, public displays of non-Islamic religious symbols or text, affection between opposite sex outside of marriage, "indecent" artwork or media images, sorcery, homosexuality, cross-dressing, and fornication or adultery.
Some Western countries and human rights advocates criticize the Saudi corrections system for the manner in which offenders are punished.
[32] Corruption is widespread in Saudi Arabia, most prevalent in the form of nepotism, the use of middlemen, 'wasta', to do business as well as patronage systems.
[34] In a country that is said to "belong" to the royal family and is named after it,[35] the lines between state assets and the personal wealth of senior princes are blurred.
[36] The corruption has been described as systemic[37] and endemic,[38] and its existence was acknowledged[39] and defended[40] by Prince Bandar bin Sultan (a senior member of the royal family)[41] in an interview in 2001.
[45] Investigations by both US and UK authorities resulted, in 2010, in plea bargain agreements with the company, by which it paid $447 million in fines but did not admit to bribery.
The official line is that the purge was in response to corrupt practices by the accused and that the anti-corruption committee has the right to issue arrest warrants, impose travel restrictions, and freeze bank accounts.
[50] On 15 March 2020, Saudi Arabia conducted another mass-detention campaign and arrested 298 government employees out of the 674 people investigated on suspicion of corruption.
