MAKKAH, 26 August 2005 — The Interior Ministry is operating two DNA laboratories — one in the Eastern Province and another in Tabuk, said Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, the Interior Ministry spokesman. According to Gen. Al-Turki, these two laboratories are part of the six laboratories that Interior Minister Prince Naif has ordered to be built across the Kingdom, Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper reported.
Gen. Al-Turki said that the remaining four laboratories were being built in Jeddah, Makkah, Madinah and Jizan. The laboratories will be ready by the end of the year, he said.
The laboratory in Jeddah will most likely be completed first and go into operation within four months, Gen. Turki said adding that staff members for the laboratories were under training now. The laboratories would be equipped with latest technology.
He said that the idea to set up a DNA laboratory was conceived in 1989 and put into action after the Interior Ministry sent a number of employees abroad — to USA and England — for training.
The laboratories which belong to the General Security Department will assist the Interior Ministry, governorate areas and courts. DNA tests helped in a number of police cases, especially during the Mina fire in 1997. DNA tests have helped a lot in identifying unknown and burned bodies.
Most recently, DNA test helped in identifying Saleh Al-Oufi, the head of the Al-Qaeda cell operating in the Kingdom, after he was shot and killed in Madinah recently.
The inventor of DNA testing was geneticist Alec Jeffreys of Leicester University in England. In the early 1980s Jeffreys discovered that Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA — the double-helix configuration of protein molecules in cells that determines the inherited genetic characteristics of all living things — were in fact “genetic markers,” as unmistakably unique to each individual (with the exception of identical twins) as a fingerprint. These markers are in the nucleus of human cells from blood and bone to hair and sweat. They’re the same from cell to cell and remain so throughout an individual’s life.
The Ulema committee and members from Islamic Fiqh Academy discussed approving DNA in 2002. They visited DNA laboratories and reviewed work there. The committee them approved the use of DNA tests in solving crime cases.
