ABHA, 4 August 2006 — Thirteen young men in Abha and Ballasmar in the Asir region have been arrested following two unrelated street brawls that left one man dead and several others injured, Al-Madinah newspaper reported yesterday.

In the first incident, police arrested three men after they beat up two young Saudis in the Al-Saad neighborhood of Abha. The trio then left the area and became involved in another fight in a neighboring suburb in which they were badly beaten up and their car damaged. The three youths then went to a local hospital for treatment.

Police officers received a complaint from the two young Saudis who had been beaten up in the Al-Saad neighborhood. Officers tracked down the three men to the hospital and arrested them together with the two Saudis they had assaulted in Al-Saad.

In an unrelated incident, police in Ballasmar, a town in the Asir region, were called to the scene of a road-rage incident in which a car was forced off the road by another.

When police came to the scene they found that the car had driven through three lampposts and the Saudi driver was lying at the bottom of a nearby cliff after being been beaten up by a group of eight men from the other car. The young man was taken to hospital but later died as a result of his injuries.

The man had been driving with his friend when he was forced off the road by the other car. The passenger escaped after the car crashed but the driver was caught by the eight men who beat him up. While trying to escape the man fell over the cliff and sustained some broken bones and head injuries.

The man later died in hospital. Police arrested the eight men who had been involved in the attack.

Honor Killing?

A young man led police to a desert location outside Riyadh where he buried his 20-year-old sister after murdering her in what is believed to be an honor killing, Al-Watan newspaper reported yesterday.

The family of the dead woman kept the murder a secret for nearly three weeks while police conducted an intensive operation to look for her. Finally the father of the girl confessed that his son had killed her to protect family honor.

Police collected evidence and then arrested the youth who told police exactly what he had done and led them to the place where he had buried his sister. The body was taken to the Riyadh Medical Compound for inquest.