The Summary Court in Riyadh has asked Al-Watan newspaper to present a detailed reply, within two weeks, to the lawsuit filed a few months ago against the daily by prominent Saudi scholar Sheikh Salman Al-Awdah. In the lawsuit, Al-Awdah accused the Arabic paper of defaming him and printing lies and attributing false fatwas to him. Toward the end of last year, Al-Watan ran an article claiming that the sheikh's son Muaz was caught at the Saudi-Iraqi border while trying to sneak into Iraq and join hands with the resistance forces there. The paper said that Muaz had left a farewell note to his father saying, "We will meet in Heaven, I am going to Iraq."The paper said that Al-Awdah, who encouraged Saudi young men to go to Iraq, feared that his son might die, and raised the issue with Prince Muhammad ibn Naif, assistant interior minister for security affairs, requesting him to help stop his son from leaving the country. Ahmad Othman Al-Tuwaijri, the scholar's lawyer, said that Al-Awdah has denied in his lawsuit all allegations published by the paper and asked for hard proof of what it had printed. Al-Tuwaijri stated that his client filed the lawsuit in order to stop "all irresponsible acts that tarnish people's reputation and image. Above all, my client wants to help clean this society of those who try to harm its principles, values and traditions." The lawsuit seeks a formal apology in print from the paper stating that all what it had published about the sheikh was untrue.