RIYADH, 29 April 2007 — A schoolteacher, waiting for a taxi with her daughter, was beaten and robbed of her possessions in one of the main streets of the capital.
Abthihad Salah Emad, who had left her sister’s apartment with her 11-year-old daughter, Tamara, was in the process of hailing a taxi to go home when she was attacked.
Three youths in a 2006 Camry attacked her and snatched her handbag before fleeing. She had SR7,000 in cash, two mobile phones, a resident permit (iqama), an ATM card, house keys and her medicines in her purse.
“It was horrific,” Emad said about the incident, adding that her daughter starts crying whenever she recollects the attack. “My daughter and I have not recovered from the shock. She has not gone to school from the day of the incident.”
“The car stopped on the Olaya Street in front of the Kingdom Tower; the driver remained seated in the car and the other two guys, smartly dressed, walked toward me. One of them hit me on my shoulder and the other picked up the handbag which fell down when I was being assaulted by the first guy,” Emad said while recounting the attack. “I was also worried about my daughter who too was knocked down during the scuffle.”
She said that she knew that the robbers would not hesitate to cause grievous injuries to her if she resisted. “Grabbing what they needed, they sped off in their luxury car leaving my daughter and me fallen on the road,” she said bursting out in tears.
Emad said the cash she had in her bag was borrowed from her sister to pay her apartment’s rent. “When I came home I was penniless and I had to break open the doors of my house,” she said.
Emad reported the matter to the nearest police station and was told that she will be notified as soon as the culprits are caught.
Emad is a senior teacher in the school and teaches Arabic and Islam to foreign students. “I pray that I should get my belongings back and the robbers be punished according to the local laws,” Emad said.
