RIYADH, 30 September — A 56-year-old German expatriate was killed yesterday when the Ford Mercury he was driving here blew up.
The car was torn apart by the blast, which occurred at 4.26 p.m. near the embassies of Libya and Turkmenistan on Abdul Hamid Al-Katab Street in the capital’s Sulaimaniya District, a high-class commercial and residential area.
An official from the Interior Ministry told the Saudi Press Agency that the German had been identified as W. Maxmilan Graf. He worked for a private firm in Riyadh. He was the only person in the car when it blew up.
German Ambassador Harald Kindermann arrived at the blast scene at 7.15 p.m., Elmar Jakobs, first secretary for political and press affairs at the German Embassy, told Arab News.
The ministry official also told SPA that security agencies were already probing the incident, and that it seemed to be related to a series of bombings targeting Westerners that have shaken the Saudi capital over the past two years.
A Western resident who witnessed the incident told Reuters that the victim had been “blown to pieces”.
Other witnesses said the explosion had not caused any damage to nearby buildings. The whole area was immediately sealed off by security forces.
A series of bombings shook the Kingdom in late 2000 and early 2001, killing one Westerner and wounding several other people. Saudi officials have blamed those attacks on rival gangs in the illegal alcohol trade. The British media and Foreign Office have argued that the bombs are in fact the work of terrorists, but have provided no evidence to prove this.
Other analysts argue that the bombings are being carried out by locals who are hostile to the West because of America’s perceived unconditional support for Israel in its on-going conflict with the Palestinians.
In June, a British banker was killed when a blast destroyed his car in Riyadh.
A security source at the time said that this attack was linked to alcohol smuggling, but the banker’s friends have subsequently denied categorically that this could be possible.
