JEDDAH, 1 October 2004 — A three-judge special judicial committee has ordered that four suspects arrested in connection with a series of robberies targeting the Saudi French Bank and Al-Rajhi Banking and Investment Corporation be put to death.
The committee revealed that the death sentence was ordered due to special circumstances surrounding other criminal acts committed by the group.
The group, consisting of three Saudis and a South Asian man, was wanted in connection with drug trafficking, prostitution and blackmail. The suspects were arrested shortly after committing their last two robberies at a Bawadi District bank and the Hail Street branch of Al-Rajhi Banking and Investment Corporation.
The Hail Street robbery took place in October last year, when two of the four suspects approached a security guard outside the branch while wielding machine guns.
They beat him up until he opened the door for them. Once inside, they locked themselves in and began looking for cash. As employees of the bank began to arrive, the robbers made their escape through an emergency side door.
That was the second robbery in which Al-Rajhi Banking and Investment Corporation was targeted. Two years prior to that in Makkah, SR87,000 was taken. In late 2002, the Saudi French Bank branch in north Jeddah was robbed by the same group of people, as was another bank in the south of Jeddah.
A police investigation following the arrests revealed that the suspects had been involved with a mother and her 19-year-old daughter. The mother would invite various wealthy businessmen to her house to engage in sexual acts with the daughter for money. While the man and daughter are engaged in the sexual act, the gang of four men would burst into the room and claim to be the brothers of the 19 year-old woman.
Feigning outrage and anger, they make the victim believe that they are about to perform an honor killing on him. At the last moment they tell him that they will spare his life for money. In two cases the gang managed to take one million riyals from one man and half an million from another.
In the case of the half million dollar man, he was held over the weekend until the branch opened on Saturday for the suspects to go cash the check.
When the mother and daughter learned that the criminals were caught by the police, they fled the country. As a result, an Interpol warrant was issued and the mother and daughter team were arrested. They have denied any knowledge of the bank robberies.
