JEDDAH, 30 January — A Pakistani national was arrested in Makkah on Monday on charges of killing his wife and seriously wounding his brother, newspaper reports said yesterday.
Javed Iqbal, 38, confessed that he stabbed his wife, Kulthum Khater, 40, to death and wounded his elder brother Gul Muhammad Asghar, 40, in a blind rage after a dispute, Al-Nadwah daily said.
Informed about the crime, a police team under Col. Mustafa Al-Nahhas of Al-Maabad station rushed to the scene of the crime in the Rie Zakhir district of Makkah Monday morning. The victims were immediately transferred to King Faisal hospital. The woman died shortly after arrival there.
Though not in a critical condition, Gul Muhammad also sustained serious wounds, according to a hospital source.
Javed Iqbal told journalists who met him at the jail that he did not know why he had committed the crime, but that he had been possessed by a devilish impulse to attack his wife and brother. His wife, he recalled, had demanded money for their children’s education. He was further infuriated because she refused to give him back his iqama (residence permit), which she had given to Gul Muhammad.
He said he used a kitchen knife to stab his wife, but it had never been his intention to kill her.
He added that he had not been able to control himself because of the high blood pressure and diabetes he suffers.
Gul Muhammad told reporters who visited him at King Faisal Hospital that he had been stabbed several times.
Describing what had happened on that morning, Gul said: “It was around 3 a.m. when Javed knocked at my door and demanded his iqama; but I did not have it with me. Then he went to the kitchen to drink water. However, he returned wielding a knife and attacked me. When I defended myself, he left me and went to his wife and killed her.”
The children of the dead woman said that when they found their father stabbing their mother they ran over to a neighbor’s house to seek help.
Abdul Latif Al-Sindhi, a neighbor, said his daughter told him about the crime and asked him to come home immediately.
“When I came home I found the neighbor’s wife lying in a pool of blood,” he said.
Saudi kills two sons
A Saudi man has killed his two sons, aged three-and-a-half and two years, suspecting he was not the father of the boys, newspaper reported yesterday.
The father, whose name was not disclosed, confessed to police in Onaiza, 300 km northwest of Riyadh, that he killed Othman and Nayef and dumped their bodies in a sewage tunnel near their home, Al-Jazirah said.
Relatives said the father had been suffering from psychological problems and was unsure if the two sons were his own.
