Power outages in Jeddah court disrupt 300 hearings

The Criminal Court in Jeddah faced a complete shutdown this week because of power outages.
Officials at the court described the outages as intentional, according to an informed source quoted by a local daily.
The power outages caused malfunctions of computers, thus preventing more than 300 hearings.
Once the power was restored, the court decided to stop hearings on the ground that reloading information into the central computer system would take as much as eight hours.
The incident caused an exchange of accusations. Sources inside the court said that the power outage was intentional on the part of the electricity firm due to unpaid bills for the building currently used by the court. The building was previously a commercial center.
The sources explained that the court summoned the Civil Defense Department to help people who were trapped in seven elevators, and to address cases of panic and fear among prisoners who were in the basement in total darkness.
The problem worsened because the stand-by power generator which the Justice Ministry had provided for the court was out of order and failed to operate when the electricity was cut off.
More than 900 clients, among them litigants awaiting printouts of rulings in addition to other people who were in the process of filing lawsuits or who had court cases on the schedule, were affected. There was in addition more 150 indictments from the Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecutions which could not be processed.
Col. Saeed Sarhan, spokesman for Makkah Civil Defense Department, said rescue teams were dispatched to the court. There were no casualties or injuries.
According to sources, the cases delayed included six in which the prosecutors were demanding the death penalty. Other cases involved 40 lawsuits on ethical grounds, 30 scam and false identities, 70 cases involving drug trafficking or smuggling, 30 cases of clashes with verbal or physical assaults, eight cases of money laundering, 50 cases of threatening the lives of others, and more than 40 other unspecified cases.