Saudis Quiz ‘Gay Wedding’ Guests
BBC News, March 2, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3521479.stm
Saudi investigators are grilling some 50 people for
allegedly attending a gay wedding in the city of Medina, a newspaper reported
on Monday.
The suspects deny they were attending a gay marriage and
say they took part in a ceremony to mark the wedding of a Chadian friend, Arab
News said.
The accused Chadian told the police he was rehearsing for
his legal marriage, which was planned for last Friday.
The incident has shocked Saudi Arabia, where gay marriage
is banned.
An initial newspaper report last Friday claimed that
police arrested guests at the wedding of an all-male couple from Chad.
Different stories
Police raided a rest house where the ceremony was under
way after advice from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and
Prevention of Vice, or religious police, Arab News reported.
Investigators say that invitations to last Wednesday’s
ceremony indicated it was a gay function and point to the suspicious behaviour
of guests.
They fled the venue at the sight of police cars and left
some 30 vehicles behind, according to security sources.
But one of the two Chadians involved told the police that
he was rehearsing for his legal marriage, to be held at a wedding hall last
Friday.
His Saudi sponsor confirmed the man’s story and said he
had given him money to meet the marriage expenses.
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