WASHINGTON, Feb 4 (IslamOnline) - A Saudi passenger had to pay a hefty fine for using a cell phone on an internal flight in Saudi Arabia.
The man, who has only been identified as a military officer, was sentenced to 70 lashes for ignoring repeated requests by Saudi Airlines crew to refrain from using a cell phone before take off.
The Al-Iqtisadiyah al-Saudia reported that the man's actions prompted airport security to take him off the plane and arrest him.
A criminal court found the officer guilty of "endangering the lives of everyone on [the] plane," adding that the telephone "could create a malfunction in the plane that would kill all its passengers."
The paper cited unnamed sources as saying that the man who was an internal flight from Tabouk, in northern Saudi Arabia, to Abha in the south, "kept using his mobile phone on the plane, which delayed take-off about half an hour."
The newspaper did not disclose when the incident took place or when the sentence will be carried out. It is also reported that it is a first time that such a sentence has been carried out in the Kingdom.
The newspaper quoted officials from Saudi Airlines as saying, "at least seven technical problems we believe were related to passengers using their cellular phones during take-offs and landings."
