GENEVA // A procedure for obtaining a pardon from Saudi Arabia’s king is under way for jailed blogger Raif Badawi, whose flogging sentence created worldwide outrage, a senior Swiss official said on Saturday.
"A procedure for a pardon is now under way before the head of state, that is King Salman," Yves Rossier, the secretary of state at the foreign ministry, said in the newspaper La Liberte on Saturday.
Mr Rossier had raised the blogger’s case during an official visit to Riyadh this week.
The European Parliament last month awarded Badawi, 31, its Sakharov human rights prize.
Badawi cofounded the Saudi Liberal Network internet discussion group.
He was detained in 2012 on cyber crime charges and later sentenced for insulting Islam and calling for the end of the influence of religion on public life.
Badawi received the first 50 lashes of his 1,000 lashes sentence in January but there have been no more, following criticism from the European Union, United States, Sweden, Canada, the United Nations and others.
* Agence France-Presse
England squads for Test and T20 series against New Zealand
Test squad: Joe Root (capt), Jofra Archer, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Sam Curran, Joe Denly, Jack Leach, Saqib Mahmood, Matthew Parkinson, Ollie Pope, Dominic Sibley, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes
T20 squad: Eoin Morgan (capt), Jonny Bairstow, Tom Banton, Sam Billings, Pat Brown, Sam Curran, Tom Curran, Joe Denly, Lewis Gregory, Chris Jordan, Saqib Mahmood, Dawid Malan, Matt Parkinson, Adil Rashid, James Vince
The Two Popes
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce
Four out of five stars
Stamp duty timeline
December 2014: Former UK finance minister George Osbourne reforms stamp duty, replacing the slab system with a blended rate scheme, with the top rate increasing to 12 per cent from 10 per cent:
Up to £125,000 - 0%; £125,000 to £250,000 – 2%; £250,000 to £925,000 – 5%; £925,000 to £1.5m: 10%; Over £1.5m – 12%
April 2016: New 3% surcharge applied to any buy-to-let properties or additional homes purchased.
July 2020: Rishi Sunak unveils SDLT holiday, with no tax to pay on the first £500,000, with buyers saving up to £15,000.
March 2021: Mr Sunak decides the fate of SDLT holiday at his March 3 budget, with expectations he will extend the perk unti June.
April 2021: 2% SDLT surcharge added to property transactions made by overseas buyers.
