Family Members Bury Al-Huraisi in Riyadh

RIYADH, 31 July 2007 — In previous situations where the body of a person involved in a high-profile case is interred, police and some pious members of the community have been known to grab cameras of photographers and smash them. This was not the case yesterday when the body of Salman Al-Huraisi, the 28-year-old Saudi who was allegedly beaten to death by members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice when they stormed his house on suspicion of selling alcohol, was laid to rest yesterday in the capital.

Apparently the public is a little more sympathetic to putting this body on display: “Let them take shots,” one bystander said. “They tortured him.”

After remaining refrigerated in the morgue of Al-Shumaisi Hospital for two months since the incident took place in late May, authorities pressured the family to receive the body at the morgue and bury it.

“The Uraija Police Department called the father and asked him to sign the papers for the release of the body from the morgue,” the deceased’s cousin, Salman Al-Salman, told Arab News.

He said the family had no choice but to receive the body and bury it after authorities were adamant to not show them a copy of the autopsy report. The family is demanding to see the medical examiner’s report and had been refusing to receive the body until their demands to see the report and possibly conduct a new autopsy were met.

“They said that if we wanted to see it, we would be able to do so in the court,” the relative said, adding that he had no idea when the case would be transferred to court.

Four members of the family still remain in prison, arrested on the same day that Al-Huraisi died.

Describing what members of the family saw when they washed the body, Al-Huraisi’s father said he was shocked.

“Even if I had any small intention of dropping charges, after seeing the body I am not dropping anything,” Muhammad Al-Huraisi, 73, said. “He was so badly beaten it was hard for us to recognize him. There was a crack in his skull, his right eye was popped out, his jaw was broken, and there was another opening in his belly. His mother could not absorb the entire thing and she fainted at the wash room.”

The father has called on Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah to bring the family justice. The father wants the death penalty on murder charges to those responsible for the death of their relative.

The death of Al-Huraisi late May was the first incident which triggered public calls for more responsibility from the part of the commission.

A little over a week after his death, another Saudi man died in the custody of the commission in Tabuk.

A part-time commission member had arrested Ahmed Al-Bulawi, a retired patrol guard, near an amusement park in Tabuk after spotting an Arab woman ride in his car. They were accused of being in an illegal state of seclusion (when a man and an unrelated woman are alone together). At the station, it was established that the man used to work for the woman’s family as a driver and still worked part time to subsidize his pension. The commission had allegedly acted in haste.

Al-Bulawi collapsed in custody and died. Even though official medical reports have cleared commission members from causing the death, four commission members currently stand on trial in court for their involvement.

Both high profile incidents had urged the Interior Ministry to send a directive to all governorates, the president of the commission, as well as the president of the general investigation and prosecutor general for commission members to strictly abide by the law.

In the directive, the Interior Ministry warned commission members to immediately deliver any arrested person — male or female — to local police authorities as per the royal decree issued in 1981. Interrogations in commission centers would be prohibited. It mentioned that members who fail to abide by those directives would be sacked.