From the Radford Files archives:

Ali Sabat was condemned to die in early April. Sabat, the Lebanese host of a popular TV show, for years gave his viewers psychic advice and predictions. This may cost him his life. Many people around the world claim to foretell the future, talk to the dead, and do other amazing (if scientifically unproven) feats.

The problem is that Sabat is a Shiite Muslim, and many Muslims—like many fundamentalist Christians—consider fortunetelling occult and therefore evil. Making a psychic prediction is seen as invoking diabolical forces, perhaps even entering into a pact with Satan. Fortunetelling, prophecy, and other forms of divination have been condemned by Saudi Arabia’s religious leaders. In 2008, while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, Ali Sabat was arrested by that country’s religious police, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. His crime: sorcery. Yes, people can still be accused of practicing witchcraft and condemned to death for it in 2010.

According to the human rights group Amnesty International, a court last month upheld Sabat’s death sentence, with the judges deciding that “he deserved to be sentenced to death because he had practiced ‘sorcery’ publicly for several years before millions of viewers.” He was scheduled to be publicly executed April 2, but his beheading was deferred. Sabat is not out of trouble; he did not receive a reprieve, merely a temporary stay of execution, and as of the writing his fate remains in question. In an ironic twist, Sabat might save his life if he confessed that his psychic predictions and powers were all a hoax (or an act merely for entertainment) and therefore not a true exhibition of occult powers.

This piece originally appeared in the Briefs Briefs column in the June 2010 Skeptical Briefs newsletter.

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