Doctor Sentenced to 1,500 Lashes for Addicting Saudi Princess to Painkillers

Egyptian Raouf Amin languishes in a Saudi jail and is punished with 70 lashes once a week. Cut off from his family in Egypt, the 52-year-old doctor was convicted for prescribing painkillers to a Saudi princess that led to her addiction.

An appeal court judge ruled that Amin will be beaten weekly until he has received 1,500 lashes - and then he'll spend another 14 years behind bars.

The judge doubled the original punishment meted out to him a little over one year ago in the lower court where Amin was sentenced to a seven-year jail term with 750 lashes.

Not surprisingly, human rights groups and the Egyptian doctor's syndicate are outraged.

The Middle East Times was told by a human rights lawyer that Amin was given his first 70 lashes last week and will get 70 more this week.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) and the foreign ministry are taking an earnest look into finding a way to have Amin quickly returned to Egypt.

The doctor, who has lived and worked in the Gulf state for more than 20 years, had been treating the princess for several months for back pains after she visited the hospital in which he worked.

Ahmed Amin, the doctor's son, who himself was born in Saudi Arabia, claims the woman went into the hospital and specified the medication she wanted.

The woman had been receiving similar treatment in the United States after she had fallen from a horse while riding. More