JEDDAH, 8 September 2005 — A 43-year-old man was arrested and faces murder charges after stoning his 10-year-old son to death in a public park in the village of Jubailah, northwest of Riyadh, on Friday.
Al-Uyaina Police took the man, who was wearing clothing drenched in the blood of his son, into custody, Al-Madinah daily reported yesterday. The boy had tried to flee the barrage of stones thrown at him but a missile that hit him in the back of the head proved fatal. The boy’s body has been taken to the University Hospital in Riyadh. Police say that drugs may have been a factor in the case. The father has a history of arrests for both illegal drugs and violent behavior.
The suspect, who police say has confessed to the crime, was married and had three other children. His wife of 15 years recently had taken her younger children and left after a series of beatings. The last beating, in which the man kicked his wife repeatedly as she lay in agony on the floor and then tried to force chlorine bleach down her throat, ended when he decided to go to the supermarket. The woman remained in critical condition at Huraymela Hospital for five days, where she almost lost their fifth child, who she was carrying to term.
Despite the man’s recent arrest for the series of beatings and burnings of his wife, he was able to obtain his release from authorities. He had demanded his wife leave their eldest son with him because of the start of school. Now the boy lies dead; the father presumably will remain in police custody this time.
The woman and her surviving children are staying with her father in his Western Province home. The slain boy knew he was in serious trouble, and often spirited his father’s mobile phone away to call his sister, pleading for a rescue from his ongoing horror.
The boy said that all the abuses his father had practiced on his mother had been transferred to him. Equally heartbreaking for the mother were the callsfrom neighbors reporting to her the boy’s screams day and night. Police apparently viewed the situation as a family dispute and failed to intervene.
The wife, who narrated all the details to Al-Madinah daily, provided all police reports regarding her endless struggle with her abusive husband. She called on Riyadh Governor Prince Salman to enforce justice on the man, who not only has destroyed her life but murdered her eldest son. She fears that if her husband is granted more leniency, that her life and the lives of her surviving children will be at risk.
Col. Talal Al-Maghribi of the Al-Uyaina Police Department said that investigation of the case continues despite the father’s confession. The battered, lifeless body of the child remains at the University Hospital in Riyadh. He will be beaten no more.
