'Womanly' man gets 21 months jail, 1,000 lashes

A man caught dressed like women and staging booze parties for money paid a heavy price for such illegal activity in Saudi Arabia when a court sentenced him to 19 months in prison and ordered him lashed 1,000 times in batches.

Saudi Arabia’s religious police arrested the man in the Western Red Sea port of Jeddah after discovering he was organising booze parties for young men through his Facebook account in return for SR1,000 (Dh1,000) per person, ‘Al Watan’ daily reported.

“They caught him dressed like a woman and found make-up and a small piece of hashish in his bag,” the paper said.

It said a friend who helped him was also sentenced to one year in prison and ordered lashed 500 times.