RIYADH: The High Court in Riyadh is currently hearing a case against a 34-year-old Saudi woman who is accused of disfiguring and burning a Syrian woman by showering her with acid, Al-Madinah newspaper reported yesterday.

“Her friend Norah poured concentrated acid on my 28-year-old daughter making her virtually blind, and disfiguring her face, head, ears, parts of her nose, breasts and almost every inch of her body in January last year,” said Dr. Muhammad Alush, father of the victim, Shauq. “My daughter is slowly recovering from the traumatic experience,” he added.

When asked about the possibility of an out of court settlement, Alush said, “Shauq is not content with anything less than a fair qisas (retribution) in which Norah is made to undergo the same disfigurement and burns she inflicted on my daughter.”

Alush was initially ready to drop charges in lieu of SR7 million in damages. He, however, changed his mind saying his daughter wants retribution.

Norah, a Saudi schoolteacher at a private school run by Shauq’s mother, was close friends with Shauq, allowing her to even open a dress shop under her name.

“Norah might have been jealous of Shauq’s beauty or because Shauq refused to pay her some money that she demanded a few days before the attack,” said Alush.

Giving details of the horrid experience, Shauq said Norah came to her home one morning when she was in bed. “The housemaid brought her to my bedroom. She started kicking me for no reason and I was immensely confused. She dragged me out of bed and struck me in my face repeatedly causing me to fall,” she said.

“Then she poured some awful smelling liquid all over me and I felt as though I was being skinned alive. I wanted to run to the bathroom and pour water on me but she did not allow me. She started strangling me, tightening a piece of cloth around my neck, but stopped because the acid on me seemed to harm her as well. But she went on kicking me. I was crying aloud,” she added.

“In the course of the frenzy I guessed some acid fell on her body prompting her to undress. By that time my brother rushed to the room and found her unclothed. He threw some clothes at her and she left our home,” Shauq said.

Norah is currently detained in a Riyadh prison. She refuses to talk to the media or the authorities about the crime she is charged with. The case continues.