RIYADH, 4 June 2004 — One Highway policeman was killed and another critically wounded during a shootout at a highway checkpoint, Al-Watan reported.
Twenty-five-year-old Cpl. Muhammad Al-Shatri Al-Mutairi died in the line of duty while Cpl. Muhammad Al-Otaibi, 30, was critically wounded as members of a car with Qatari license plates opened fire when they were asked for papers during a check on the highway leading to Kharj.
The policemen were manning the checkpoint at the Duwaiheya station, 70 kilometers from Kharj, when they stopped a Toyota car for a routine check. The driver, instead of producing the papers, brought out a gun and opened fire at them. Cpl. Al-Mutairi died later at the military hospital. His colleague has undergone an operation at the King Khaled Hospital in Kharj. Police have intensified their search along the Kharj-Hard highway for the car and the suspect.
The older brother of the slain policeman, Salman, told the paper he received the tragic news at 6 a.m. “Police told me that my brother died as a result of a direct hit from a machine gun,” he said. “My brother is unmarried and is the seventh sibling in the family. My mother, on hearing the news, collapsed and has been admitted to hospital.”
