RIYADH, 9 August 2007 — A court here sentenced Al-Hanouti (as the Saudi young man has been named in the local press, translated as “The Undertaker”) to five years in prison for a 2006 stunt-driving accident that resulted in the death of four young Saudi men, the newspaper Al-Riyadh reported yesterday.
The victims were two sets of brothers related to each other as cousins in another vehicle when Al-Hanouti lost control of his car while performing a maneuver known in street parlance as “drifting”, a kind of controlled skid. Al-Hanouti was found guilty of causing the accident and fleeing the scene.
Relatives of the four young men have been calling for the death penalty and expressed to the local media dissatisfaction with the verdict. “Is it reasonable that he gets only this punishment?” asked Saad Al-Otaibi, a brother of two of the victims. “They didn’t question those who helped Al-Hanouti flee.”
According to the victims’ relatives, Al-Hanouti, who didn’t have a driver’s license, was driving at high speeds into oncoming traffic and was aided by friends in escaping in another vehicle after the accident.
A similar high-profile case involving “Abu Kab” (father of the [baseball] cap, as he is known in the local press) is currently in an appeals process. In the previous trial Abu Kab was sentenced to death.
The lawyer in that case says that the death penalty is excessive for an act of negligence and stupidity, and points out that the victims in that accident were willing participants as passengers in Abu Kab’s car.
The families in the case of Al-Hanouti say that their boys were simply riding along a public street when the stunt-driving Saudi stuck them.
“My two sons lost their lives because a joy rider was having a little bit of fun in his car,” said Ayed Al-Otaibi, the father of two of the accident victims.
