RIYADH, 26 June 2007 — A Saudi man who is not an official member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice is being held responsible for the death in custody of a Saudi man last month, the Governorate of Riyadh said in a statement yesterday.
Along with commission members, the man took part in a raid on the apartment of Salman Al-Huraisi, the dead Saudi. Al-Huraisi died after commission members raided his apartment because they suspected the presence of alcohol. According to the governorate, large quantities of alcohol were found in the apartment and the man later died in custody, allegedly as a result of beatings.
“Concerning the causes of death and the violations that took place, investigations of 18 official commission members who were detained have revealed that they had nothing to do with the man’s death,” said the governorate statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.
“Investigations have shown that other persons who are not official members of the commission and who had no right to participate in such actions are responsible,” the statement continued. “The responsibility for the man’s death rests with one of these persons and he will be transferred to a court to be tried according to our law.”
The statement also said that another aspect of the case concerned the presence of alcohol and drugs in the deceased’s apartment. “Some family members have been accused of the possession of alcohol and selling drugs,” it said. It specified that five family members of the originally detained nine have been released. “The accused will be transferred to a special court,” the statement added.
The governorate said that mistakes made during the arrest would be looked into by the General Investigation and Prosecution Authority (GIPA).
The governorate’s statement that people who were not commission members took part in the raid contradicts earlier statements by the commission president, Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Ghaith. He had previously denied publicly that any part-time commission workers were involved in raids.
The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), Saudi Arabia’s nongovernmental human rights body, has received an official complaint from Al-Huraisi’s family members, alleging that they were “threatened” and subjected to “psychological pressure” to give statements. Al-Huraisi’s sister and two other family members have filed an official complaint at NSHR headquarters in Riyadh. The sister was one of the original nine family members detained in the raid but she was released a few days ago.
“She came to our headquarters on Sunday and signed papers regarding her complaint that pressure and threats had been used against her,” said Saeed Al-Mastoor of the NSHR. “Saudi law specifies that a suspect cannot be subjected to any kind of pressure during the investigation and that includes psychological pressure.”
Al-Mastoor also said that there were mistakes made during the arrests of female family members. “There should have been a female staff member present during the arrest. That is part of the law which specifies that no female member of a family is arrested or searched without a female staff member being present,” he said.
Al-Huraisi’s sister told Arab News that investigators from the GIPA had insulted her by making racist remarks. Another family member said anonymously that the deceased’s father had also been subjected to psychological pressure from investigators who wanted all charges against commission members dropped. The deceased’s father is, however, unwilling to drop the charges. Al-Huraisi’s body is still unburied and is in a government hospital. An autopsy was performed and the results were provided to the investigating authorities.
In a related development, three members of the commission are to go on trial for their involvement in the death of Ahmed Al-Bulawi at one of the commission centers in Tabuk. An attorney representing the deceased’s family said a Shariah court judge is in the process of transferring the case to a specific judge who will handle the case. The Governorate of Tabuk said that the case had been transferred to Shariah Court to complete the investigations on alleged mistakes made by commission members during the man’s arrest. The man collapsed after he was arrested for picking up a woman near an amusement park. It was later established that the arrest was a mistake.
