HAFR AL-BATIN — A 12-year-old Saudi boy hanged himself on Sunday re-enacting the widely publicized execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
His brother found the boy, Sultan Abdullah Al-Shammari, hanging from a rope that he had fixed on an iron door in their home in Hafr Al-Batin, a small town 400 kilometers north of Riyadh, Okaz newspaper reported yesterday.
By the time Sultan was taken to a nearby hospital he was dead. Two of his younger brothers were watching the apparent accidental hanging.
A police investigation is under way to determine whether the accident was a case of parental negligence.
This marks the fourth youngster that has died imitating the hanging of the former Iraqi strongman. A 10-year-old boy in Houston, Texas, last Thursday hanged from his bunk bed, in a death that was ruled accidental. On the same day, a 15-year-old Indian girl committed suicide by hanging after becoming depressed and expressing outrage over the execution of the former dictator.
A nine-year-old Pakistani boy hanged himself from a ceiling fan on Jan. 1 trying to copy the scenes from the widely distributed video clip of the execution. That death was also ruled accidental.
