HAIL: The man whose speeding car ran over a citizen in Hail soon after he had returned from the US with a master’s degree under the scholarship program has been arrested. It was a stolen car and the police seized it, said an official.

Ayman Al-Damadi, aged 32, had returned home from the US on Saturday night and was fatally knocked down the very next day while he was returning home from a mosque after the morning prayer.

“Around 4:15 a.m. on May 22, the Azizyia Police Center received a report of a stolen car in front of one of a house. At 4:50 a.m., a car was moving in one of the neighborhoods. When the driver was told to stop, he fled in the opposite direction and ran over the pedestrian,” Captain Sami Al-Shamari, spokesman of Hail police, was quoted as saying by local media on Tuesday.

“The suspect, who had fled the scene soon after the accident, was arrested within 24 hours and he has confessed to the crime,” said Al-Shamari.

Mubarak Al-Damadi, the student’s cousin, said, “Ayman’s mother had prepared breakfast for her son, who had gone to pray in the neighborhood mosque. His body was placed on the sidewalk and covered. I tried to keep his body a little away from his house so that his mother did not see it.”

The Saudi Club in Tampa city, Florida, said Ayman was one of the finest students in the university, an academic in the faculty of engineering at the University of Hail, in addition to his poetry and literature skills.

Hammoud Al-Damadi, the student’s father, said amid tears, “It is not only us who lost our son, but the science and education fields have lost Ayman. He returned from Florida to serve his country as a faculty member in Hail University after he received his master’s degree, but lost his life for no fault of his.”