MAKKAH, 14 May 2008 — The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice arrested two Nigerian nationals on charges of practicing sorcery in the Mansura district of Makkah yesterday.
Zainab, 37, and Nufa, 16, confessed that they claimed to have the power to break up relationships and make people impotent, Ahmad Al-Ghamdi, the commission’s director in Makkah, told Arab News. Nuha is the youngest witch to be caught ever by the commission in the Kingdom.
After receiving several complaints, the commission on Saturday sent a woman to the two Nigerians to request their help to foil her husband’s plan to marry a second time. The duo demanded SR,3000 in remuneration from the woman, who paid an advance of SR1,000.
The next night, the two Nigerians arrived at the woman’s apartment and started their magical rites and incantations. As the act progressed, waiting commission members entered the apartment and arrested them.
Meanwhile, members of the commission’s Jeddah branch detained a Saudi practitioner of witchcraft from the Jamiah district of the city. The man used to tell his clients that he knew a magic trick to make and break relationships. In a raid at the man’s home, commission members discovered paraphernalia used in witchcraft. The man was handed into police custody.
