DAMMAM, 14 February 2007 — Abdullah Abdul Aziz Al-Samael, the younger brother of Zaki Al-Samael, the Saudi who was murdered last year in Dubai, has appealed to the legal authorities in Dubai to review the verdict and give the murderer the maximum punishment. The accused man was tried in Dubai and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
The Al-Samael brothers were returning from Dubai to Al-Ahsa a year ago when the accused, Abdullah Al-Motairy, also a Saudi, stopped them and demanded a huge sum of money. He threatened to kill them if they did not comply with his demand. When they refused him, he shot them, killing Zaki instantly and wounding Abdullah in his hand. The Dubai police arrested Al-Motairy and handed him over to the authorities for further action.
Abdullah feels that the court has wronged his relatives, including his parents and his deceased brother’s five children, the youngest of whom is only three months old. “The murderer did not deserve mercy as he killed my brother who had done nothing wrong. He tried to kill me as well but I escaped with only three wounds,” he told Arab News. “The man deprived my brother’s children of a loving and beloved father and also made our parents sick with grief. On top of all this, the court’s sentencing of the man to life imprisonment has further disappointed all of Zaki’s family.”
Abdullah has no doubt that the man deserves to be hanged, particularly because he was previously involved in three armed robberies. He said that if the man were tried in a Saudi court, he would have been sentenced to death. Abdullah was unsuccessful in his attempt to transfer the case to a Saudi court even though he argued that both the accused and the victim were Saudis.
