The Investigation and General Prosecution in Makkah is looking into a complaint lodged by a Saudi grandmother accusing the ex-husband of her daughter of torturing her 12-year-old granddaughter. The grandmother reported the father of the girl to police at Al-Mabda District in Makkah and submitted a medical report from King Faisal Hospital at Al-Sheesha in Makkah indicating that the girl had been physically abused since doctors had found signs of burns and bruises on different parts of her body. Sa'ada Humaid Al-Hadhli, the victim's grandmother, said the girl's father had divorced her daughter when the girl was one year old and until the age of six, she was in the custody of her mother. “As my granddaughter became old enough to study, we asked her father to provide us with her birth certificate to enroll her in school. The father then approached a court and sought custody of her but the judge saw that it was in the interest of the girl to remain for two more years with her mother after which the custody would be transferred to the father,” Al-Hadhli explained. She pointed out that after the passage of the two years, the custody was automatically transferred to the father and that the girl was allowed to visit her grandmother once every six months. “However,” the grandmother continued, “one day the school's social worker called us on the phone and said that she suspected that the girl was being physically tutored for she had noticed some burns and bruises on her body.” At this point, the girl's grandmother and mother asked the father to allow them to see the girl so they could verify the social worker's suspicions which turned out to be true. “We took her immediately to King Faisal Hospital where the doctors requested that we approach the police on the grounds that by law, hospitals are not allowed to deal with any case of child violence without the police being informed,” Al-Hadhli said. In her complaint the grandmother asked for the custody of the girl, especially as the father had stopped paying the SR300-monthly alimony ordered by the court when the girl was still under the custody of her mother. Al-Hadhli alleged that her granddaughter did not want to live with her father because she was afraid of being physically assaulted by him and claimed that the girl told the police that her father used to beat her with electricity wires. Major Abdul Mohsen Al-Maiman, Police Spokesman in Makkah, said the girl's grandmother had reported the incident to the police who referred it to the Investigation and General Prosecution in accordance with the regulations.
