TAIF — Misfer Ayed Al-Juaid, a Saudi national, was executed recently on charges of murder and causing injury. Al-Juaid was found guilty of murdering two people in a 2009 shooting rampage that left ten others injured. The incident took place when Al-Juaid opened fired at a private resort in Al-Sirr area in the south of Taif. Sources state that he later killed another person before surrendering. According to police, the gunman knew his victims personally had been involved in a physical altercation with them a few weeks before the shooting. A tribal meeting was held after the physical altercation to resolve the dispute between the men but Al-Juaid was not satisfied and shot his victims who were all in their 20s. He then walked out of the resort and called a friend, asking him to come to a gas station nearby. When the friend arrived, he shot him and then surrendered to the police. The victims were rushed to King Faisal Hospital for treatment. During interrogations, Al-Juaid said he committed the crime because some of the people at the resort had insulted him. One of the survivors of the incident recalled that he was surprised to see a man carrying a machine gun with his face covered. He added that when Al-Juaid was stopped, he began to shoot indiscriminately. Taif witnessed a similar incident in 2008, when six people were killed and 17 others injured in a shooting rampage. The incident took place during reconciliation talks, which were held to reduce tensions over a land dispute in Al-Sail area near Taif. Five of the dead were brothers and the sixth was a son of one of the brothers. Reconciliation talks are a traditional meeting that are held between different tribes or within the same tribe to resolve disputes, often regarding land and the payment of blood money. Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry announced that four citizens were beheaded on Tuesday after they were found guilty of murder in two separate cases. “Three Saudis were executed in the eastern Qatif region for stabbing and then shooting to death an Indian, Kohimo Ahmad, after robbing a shop where he worked," the ministry said in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency. Hussein Bin Ahmad Jassim Showaikhat, Abdul Aziz Bin Hasan Bin Abdullah Al-Matouk and Hussein Bin Ibrahim Bin Abdullah Al-Matouk were executed after they were found guilty of breaking into the grocery store, stealing money, stabbing and then shooting Ahmad with an automatic rifle. The ministry said that the three Saudis were also found guilty of several other armed robberies in the area. Khaled Bin Saeed Al-Asmari was executed in Abha in the southern Asir region for stabbing to death fellow Saudi, Abdullah Bin Saad Al-Masmaa, after a dispute. In a separate case, Syrian national William Fawzi Hatoum was executed in Al-Qurayat in Al-Jouf region for smuggling narcotics into the country, the ministry said. — SG
