JEDDAH, 7 December 2002 — An unidentified assailant gunned down a police officer in the township of Ammar in the central Qassim region Wednesday morning, press reports said yesterday.
The gunman escaped from the spot leaving the officer’s body, still in official uniform, in a pool of blood in the middle of the road, according to Al-Jazirah Arabic daily.
The paper identified the slain officer as Khaled ibn Sanyatan Al-Homaidani of Ammar police. It said Al-Homaidani had reported to duty at the station Wednesday morning before going out with a friend who had come to the station in a Ford car. The murder took place at 11 a.m. on Ammar road.
“It appears that the assailant knew the officer very well,” a friend of the slain officer told the paper.
Maj. Gen. Khaled Al-Tayyeb, director of Qassim police, said an investigation was under way.
Homaidani is survived by his wife and one-year-old daughter.
In another development, police in Taif are investigating a gunfight between groups of teenagers in Turba. Two youngsters were wounded in the incident which took place around 3 a.m. Wednesday off the main road in Khalediya district, according to Al-Jazirah.
People in the neighborhood had alerted the police when the youths started squabbling, but they failed to arrive at the scene before the fighting broke out, the paper said.
