JEDDAH, 1 November 2004 — There is great news for fugitive Naif Lafi Al-Mutairi wanted by police for numerous assaults against family, friends and others. The news is: For as long as you remain inside your house with a gun, the police won’t come after you. Your police complaint file is sitting in a box, under a bed in an unused room at the Al-Safa District police station gathering dust. For all intents and purposes you have been forgotten by the police. In the unlikely event that they come knocking on your door, just stay inside, don’t answer the door, and soon enough the police will be gone. You can continue to abuse your family and do all the drugs you want, and no one but those you are harming will ever care.
Arab News yesterday highlighted the ordeal of a Jeddah family terrorized by their drug-addicted relative. For the past two years, Al-Mutairi has threatened to shoot other relatives and has stabbed his nephew and another man in separate incidents.
Yesterday, relatives of the wanted man were told by police that because there was no male guardian in the house other than the suspect, they were powerless to apprehend him. Members of the Al-Mutairi family then contacted Arab News which in turn contacted several top police officials in Riyadh and Jeddah to get to the bottom of this. The matter appeared to be relatively simple in that the man is an armed, drug addicted fugitive threatening his family with physical harm living in a house that belongs to their dying mother. For all intents and purposes, and in most other countries in the world, when a man is wanted by the authorities and his location is known, the police would knock on the door, go inside and get their man.
When this journalist went to the Al-Safa district police station as directed by a police major, we were met by a very low ranking plainclothes policeman. He said: “The plan is that I am going to knock on the door. When he comes down, I will arrest him.” When it was pointed out to him that the police had tried this on three separate occasions and failed to bring in their suspect because he wouldn’t open the door, the policeman said, “Well this is all I can do.” Left with no choice but that, the family and this journalist knew that the police’s visit to the house would be a waste of time, and just a show to placate the high-ranking officers breathing down upon them.
When the unarmed plainclothes policeman solicited the help of his fellow officers, there were none available. There were also no police cars in working condition to transport the policeman to the location where the suspect still remained. As a result, the plainclothes policeman first asked a uniformed officer with a machine gun to accompany him. The armed, uniformed officer refused stating that he couldn’t leave his post. The plainclothes policeman facing pressure from his superiors, woke up an unarmed uniformed officer who was sleeping in one of the jail cells and forced him to go along to the house. As neither the plainclothes nor uniformed policemen had any police cars, they elected to ride along with this journalist and another Arab News member of staff. When asked what car they would transport the man in, in the event he was arrested, the police officers said, “This one,” referring to the late model Lexus Arab News had for the day. When this strange practice was verbally conveyed to the man’s nephew, he said, “I guess he’ll be going down in style.”
However, as expected, when the police arrived and knocked on the house door, the suspect, whose car was parked outside, refused to come down. He sent his son down to tell the police he was not there. This journalist, however, could see the man looking down from the windows above. At that point the police said, “We need one of the male relatives to walk into the house ahead of us.” Fearing for his life, the man’s nephew asked what would happen if his uncle started shooting. The policemen told him, “We will protect you. Just go ahead of us.” The 22-year-old relative, still a university student, afraid for his life had no intentions to enter the house. “That’s why I brought the police. He will shoot anyone who comes near him.”
For the past three days, relatives of the wanted man have not been able to go home. One of the man’s relatives told Arab News, “What if he shoots one of us tonight, or tomorrow or next week, who will be responsible?”
The family is now looking forward to the wanted man’s escape from the house. “It’s the only reprieve we will get. Every time the police came he left the house for either a few days or a few weeks. But he will be back madder than ever,” said the man’s sister. To that the nephew added, “Deep down inside, my uncle Naif is a good person. He has been addicted to speed since he was 13. He is now 39. Being in jail will allow him to sober up and maybe remember who he was and what we as his family mean to him.”
