RIYADH: Abdul Aziz Al-Humain, president of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, has apologized to a man whom commission members accused of indecent behavior in a public place, Al-Watan newspaper reported yesterday.
Mohammed Al-Qahtani, a 27-year-old engineer, told the newspaper that Al-Humain received him at his office on Monday and told him the two commission agents involved in the March 17 incident were under investigation.
Al-Humain also informed him that Ahmed Al-Jardan, the commission’s public relations director, has been removed from his post and transferred to an administrative job. Al-Jardan had released Al-Qahtani’s name to a local newspaper in violation of the commission’s policy of confidentiality.
“Sheikh Al-Humain apologized to me after receiving me at his office on Monday. The sheikh said it was not the policy of the commission to disclose names of suspects to the press,” Al-Qahtani said.
“I could not believe that the commission chairman would warmly receive me after its disgraceful statement and the hostile treatment of my wife and me,” Al-Qahtani said. “In an official statement, the commission’s spokesman denied my charges that the commission agents beat me and tore my clothes, accusing me of violating the norms of public behavior,” he added.
He said the commission chief promised him fair treatment. He, however, added: “I shall wait until the end of his investigations and then only decide if I should approach a court or not.”
Al-Riyadh newspaper first reported the incident at a Riyadh shopping mall without naming the suspect.
In a statement to the daily later, Al-Jardan revealed the suspect’s name and said he had hugged his wife and kissed her in a car in the mall’s parking lot.
The statement said Al-Qahtani confessed to the charges, and the couple was left alone after apologizing. Al-Qahtani denied the charges, saying as an observant Muslim he would never behave in such a way in public.
Al-Qahtani said he wants the commission to restore his and his wife’s dignity.
He claimed that his whole tribe was behind him and that they would complain to the highest authorities about the false charges brought against him.
Al-Qahtani said he was dropping his wife off at a shopping mall when members of the commission accosted him, accusing him of being with a woman who is not his wife.
They forced his wife to leave the mall, showering her with insults, Al-Qahtani said.
He said he showed them his marriage certificate, but they were not convinced and took him in their car to the commission’s office.
Al-Riyadh newspaper yesterday published another statement from Al-Jardan in which he apologized for jumping to conclusions before the investigation was over.
“The members who have taken part in the case have been suspended from work and are being investigated,” said Al-Jardan’s new statement.
