MONTREAL - A backbench Liberal MP believes the G20 meeting is the perfect occasion for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to raise the case of a Montreal man facing beheading in Saudi Arabia.
Dan McTeague said Harper should take a few minutes to discuss the case of Mohamed Kohail with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia when the two are in the same room in Washington, D.C. this weekend.
Kohail, 23, has exhausted all of his legal options after an appeal of his death sentence was rejected last week by a Saudi appeal court.
"It's a golden opportunity to actually raise the case as briefly as he can," McTeague, the Liberal consular affairs critic, said in an interview Friday.
"Certainly raising this would reinforce to the Saudis authorities that Canada takes the life of these two (innocent) men very seriously."
Kohail, was convicted of killing Munzer Haraki, 19, during a schoolyard brawl last year in Jidda and sentenced to death by beheading.
His brother Sultan, 18, is slated to be retried in adult court in the same case and supporters fear he too could face death.
Muhanna Ezzat, a 22-year-old Jordanian, has also been convicted of killing Haraki.
Supporters of the Kohails say only the newly created Saudi Supreme Court or King Abdullah himself can overturn the sentence.
Aubrey Harris of Amnesty International Canada described the situation as "quite serious."
"An execution could happen at any time and it's often without much warning in Saudi Arabia," Harris said. "Sometimes the family isn't even involved until after the fact."
The Kohail brothers were charged after the January 2007 brawl, which involved dozens of teenage boys.
A gang of 15 men chased down the Kohails and Ezzat during a settling of accounts stemming from an alleged insult Sultan made to a female cousin of Haraki's.
Sultan has denied the accusation.
The Kohails have said the gang leaned against a waist-high fence, which toppled and pinned Haraki underneath.
Haraki died of internal injuries.
Fearful for Mohamed Kohail's life and tired of government inaction, McTeague said he is prepared to pay his own way to go to Saudi Arabia and is awaiting word on a visa.
McTeague hopes to meet with Mohamed, Haraki's father and anyone in Saudi Arabia willing to listen to him.
"But at the end of this, I'm a backbench opposition member," McTeague said.
"The prime minister has the resources and the capabilities to do far more than I can in this case. I'm really encouraging him to sit down and at least speak to King Abdullah in the hope that it will spare the life of an innocent man."
