UK police arrest suspect in Nahid’s murder

JEDDAH: British police in Essex on Saturday arrested a 16-year-old on suspicion of murdering Saudi woman Nahid Almanea and James Attfield, the father of three children. Nahid Almanea was stabbed 16 times in the attack in June last year.
According to an Essex police statement, the suspected teenager is under interrogation for the murder of the two.
Police said the teenager was arrested near a bookstore at 11 a.m. Tuesday morning on suspicion of having “an offensive weapon” on him. Investigators continued to ask him about crimes in the area, and concluded that he was the main suspect in the murders of Attfield and Almanea. The suspect was detained at the police center.
The police statement said Attfield was found on a sidewalk late last March early on a Sunday morning after being stabbed over 100 times. He died shortly after arriving at hospital.
Almanea, a University of Essex student, was walking to lectures from her house when she was murdered near the location where the teenager was arrested.
Police asserted that interrogations are continuing and that police want to hear testimonies of anyone who has information about the undergoing investigation.
Nahid’s uncle, Ibrahim Al-Zayed, was quoted as saying to a local publication that Nahid’s father received a phone call from the Saudi Ministry of Interior notifying him that the British police arrested a person who is 90 percent likely the murderer.
“The family is still waiting for the investigation to end to make sure the teenager was the murderer,” said Al-Zayed.
Nahid Almanea was a student on scholarship from Jouf University to complete her Ph.D. in life sciences with her brother accompanying her.
It had only been six months since she was enrolled in the language center at Colchester, Essex University, that she was murdered. She was left on the sidewalk bleeding and died shortly after being found.
The police earlier speculated she was killed for religious reasons because of her abaya and hijab.