MANAMA/RIYADH, 12 January 2006 — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah made a phone call to Bahrain’s King Hamad and offered his condolences over the death of his son. King Hamad thanked King Abdullah for his brotherly feelings.
King Hamad’s 14-year-old son was killed in a car accident yesterday in Manama, Bahraini officials said. Sheikh Faisal ibn Hamad Al-Khalifa, the youngest of king’s six sons, was killed in a “regretful accident late yesterday,” according to a statement by the royal court published by the state news agency BNA. He will be buried early today, it said.
Earlier, an Information Ministry official told AFP that Sheikh Faisal was killed when the car he was in collided with a bus in the southern part of the capital, Manama. The official, who did not wish to be identified, said the teenager had been with a number of bodyguards, one of whom was driving the car.
Bahraini state television interrupted its programs to air verses from the Qur’an, an AFP correspondent said. Sheikh Faisal did not have any official function and was honorary president of the Bahraini sports federation for the handicapped. King Hamad acceded to power in 1999 on the death of his father.
