JEDDAH, 15 December 2002 — A storekeeper was shot in the hand and leg on Friday afternoon during an attempted armed robbery in Jeddah’s Baghdadiyah District opposite the Bin Zert Mosque.

The storekeeper, Hassan Baiki, 41, an Indian national, was shot by one of three men in their early-to-mid-twenties.

No arrests have been made, and police officers refused to comment on the incident when asked for details.

“I was in the store alone on Friday afternoon,” Baiki told Arab News from his hospital bed. “Three men entered the store and demanded money. I told them I didn’t have any. One of them then shot me in the hand. I tried to defend myself but was shot in my leg before they ran out. I never saw these men before.”

El Syed Mohammed, manager of the neighboring Benzina Car Wash, told Arab News that he heard only one gunshot.

“I thought it was an Eid firecracker,” he recalled. “I looked in the direction of the sound and saw two men wearing thobes running through the car wash. They looked no older than 25. One of them had a lot of blood on the front of his thobe, and what looked like bloody handprints on his shoulder and back. He was being followed by another man. They got cornered behind the car wash and had to turn around and come toward us again. I yelled to my friend Khaled, who was drying cars at the time, to help me chase them. While being chased, the man with the blood on him dropped a carton of Marlboro cigarettes and lost his sandals. They escaped across Madinah Road.”

The police are in possession of both the cigarette packet and the slippers, according to witnesses.

Dr. Fayez Marzouq, the attending ER doctor and surgeon at King Fahd General Hospital, where the victim is, told Arab News: “Mr. Baiki arrived by ambulance on Friday afternoon. He was suffering from two gunshot wounds. The wound in his right hand shattered several of the bones in his hand. The bullet in his left leg entered just above the kneecap and severed a major artery and tore through several ligaments and muscles. Mr. Baiki had emergency surgery performed when he first arrived to remove the bullets and seal the arterial bleeding in his leg. He had reparatory surgery this morning. He will remain in the hospital for at least one week, and although he is out of the critical stage he will be permanently disfigured.”

A Yemeni neighbor, who asked that his name not be used, said that he was walking in front of the mosque across the street when he heard shouting followed by gunshots coming from the store.

“Three men ran out of the store,” he said. “One had a lot of blood on his clothes. He ran toward the car wash followed by another man. The third man ran out after them but went in the opposite direction. He got into a white 1978 Chevrolet Caprice, and sped off. I didn’t have time to get a license plate number.”

Mohammed at the car wash added: “When we realized that we couldn’t catch these men, Khalid and I returned to the car wash and found that a man had been shot. He crawled from his store to the car wash. There was blood on the sidewalk for 50 meters. I couldn’t believe he crawled all the way in that condition. We grabbed some of the towels we use for drying cars and used them as tourniquets around the man’s arm and leg. Several car wash customers were here and we called the police and an ambulance. Within three minutes there were at least 10 police cars at the scene with lights and sirens. Then an ambulance arrived two minutes later. They took him away. He was shouting and moaning at first then he fainted.”