MAKKAH, 1 September 2003 — A father has been arrested for torturing his children, Okaz reported. With apparent collusion from the mother, the man kept his children chained inside an iron cage, starved them and beat them with electric cables, the daily said.
Neighbors said the man had been living in the area for four years in conditions they described as “filthy” in an unfinished building. “His house is unfit for human habitation,” a neighbor said. “He used clapboard for the roof and there are no bathrooms.”
Another neighbor said the arrested man was comparatively wealthy. “He earns some SR160,000 a year,” he said. “But there were no bathrooms, and the children had no choice but to soil themselves.”
When the neighbors attempted to help, the man told them to mind their own business. “When we tried to give the children clothes, he would simply throw them out. He nearly killed one of his daughters when he crucified her and tied her hands and legs with ropes for days. He shaved his daughter’s hair and beat her with electric cables,” he added.
The man was exposed when his six-year-old son escaped to a neighbor’s house and asked for food and water. The neighbor took the child in and called the police, who entered the man’s house and found another naked child with a three-meter-long chain around his neck.
