A Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Hai'a) team has arrested an African man accused of practicing magic and sorcery which enabled him to gain full control over a Saudi family for two years. The man was arrested after the Hai'a received information that he had offered to concoct a spell for the sum of SR8,000, and when a meeting was set up between the informant and the African man Hai'a staff were surprised to find a Saudi man arriving to collect the money. The Saudi man told the Hai'a that he and his family of a wife and daughter had been under a spell the suspect cast on them when they turned to him with an unspecified problem, and that he had been living in their house for two years, during which time he turned them into his servants. “We didn't have a meal without him and we lived according to his instructions,” said the husband. Such was the sorcerer's power over the family that he even took the Saudi man's wife and daughter to Africa for a visit, the husband added. Among the African's personal belongings in the Saudi house the Hai'a found incriminating letters from the Saudi's wife to the spell-caster. Some talismans and a variety of herbs were also found.
