RIYADH, 9 May 2003 — The authorities foiled a suicide attempt by a Saudi national and his family here on Wednesday evening with the help of information from an Arabic language daily.

A Saudi citizen had informed Al-Watan newspaper earlier last week that he and his three daughters would be committing suicide in a public square in the capital.

The man, whose name was withheld, had gone to the newspaper’s office to complain of unjust treatment from the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice and threatened to commit suicide if his story was not published in the newspaper.

Al-Watan decided not to run the man’s story until it was able to verify the facts.

Several days later the man contacted the newspaper to say it was obvious to him that it did not believe his story. “Therefore I have no choice but to invite you to watch me and my daughters commit suicide,” the paper quoted him as saying.

Al-Watan staff immediately called the police and informed them of the man’s intentions.

At 6 p.m. on Wednesday, the man headed for the intersection of Prince Abdullah Street and Olaya Street near the Sheraton Hotel.

When security forces arrived at the scene, they saw that the man had placed several gas cylinders under his car and that his three daughters were sitting on the trunk. He threatened to light the gas cylinders and blow up the car.

More security forces arrived at the scene, and it took nearly two hours to persuade the man to give himself up.

Chief of Riyadh Police Maj. Gen. Abdullah Al-Shahrani said a thorough investigation would be carried out to discover the man’s motive.

He pointed out, however, that the man was suffering from a nervous breakdown.

Before his suicide attempt, the man had told Al-Watan that he wanted the paper to obtain a copy of his will and other documents concerning his complaint against the religious police.

According to Al-Watan, the man visited the newspaper’s bureau here on April 30. He was furious and asked to meet a senior member of staff to report an incident involving the committee.

Staff demurred and decided to wait until the man had calmed down. The man then threatened to commit suicide the following Wednesday if his complaint was not published. The man alleged that three years ago he had been insulted and unfairly arrested in a mall, imprisoned with his small daughters for several hours without basic facilities and drinking water and on release made to sign a document relinquishing his complaint against the committee. Subsequent attempts to get justice had come to nothing, the man said.

To verify the man’s story, the newspaper contacted the head of the Committee for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice’s headquarters in King Fahd District, Sheikh Tariq Al-Bahlan.

When the newspaper told the sheikh of the man’s claim, he replied that Al-Watan newspaper had no standing to intervene in such matters.

Al-Watan has submitted the case to the Governorate of Riyadh for further investigation.