A man with a disability has decided to drop charges of assault against a social worker who had beaten him with a bamboo stick at the Madina Rehabilitation Center. Muhammad Al-Juhani, the disabled man, dropped the charges on Saturday after mediation between him and the social worker. While the private rights charges have been dropped, the social worker may still face public rights legal action. It is believed the social worker has promised never to repeat his actions and to ensure he treats patients better in future. The Al-Juhani family has agreed to return their son to the rehabilitation center to continue his treatment. Investigators found the social worker guilty of physically abusing Al-Juhani. The committee, which concluded its investigation Saturday, found that the 30-year-old Al-Juhani was beaten with a bamboo stick and had marks all over his body. “It was a method of discipline,” the social worker told investigators. Committee members tasked with probing the matter were dispatched from the headquarters of the Ministry of Social Affairs in Riyadh. The results of the investigation results have been sent to Abdullah Al-Yousef, Deputy Minister for Social Development, for review and decision. “The supervisor abused me physically in the bathroom with the help of a foreign worker. Whenever I took off my clothes for a shower, he beat me,” Al-Juhani had said about the abuse. The beatings did not only happen in the bathroom, but also in the kitchen, he said. “When I was having tea at the kitchen table, the supervisor came and hit me. He shouted at me to go to bed,” said Al-Juhani about his painful experience. The committee asked the family to write a detailed report of what Al-Juhani told them when he returned home after the abuse. Waeel Ba-Faqih, the lawyer who took up Al-Juhani's case voluntarily, asked the committee to reveal more details of the investigation and further legal action to be taken against the assailant. “Dropping the private right of Mr. Al-Juhani doesn't mean abolishing legal action against the offender,” he said. Last week, another supervisor at the center allegedly tried to convince Al-Juhani's family to drop the case. The fellow supervisor allegedly pleaded for mercy for his colleague, who has a family of seven. It was also claimed that a group of people visited the Al-Juhani family's house in an attempt to have the case dropped.
