An investigation is under way into claims that a traffic policeman physically attacked a minor following a complaint on Tuesday from the boy's father to the Traffic Department in the Eastern Province. The complaint claims that a traffic policeman pursued the motorbike 17-year-old Nouh was riding, but when he failed to stop he deliberately blocked his path, causing the motorbike to overturn and crash into a car parked beside the road. The officer then reportedly approached Nouh and hit him and slapped him, tying up his hands using the cloth of a headdress and dragging him and the motorbike to Al-Ahsa Traffic Police detention cell. Fahd Al-Ghatm, father of the teenager, said he approached the Traffic Department over the incident, but was “taken aback” when he was told to pay for repairs to the parked car his son had struck during the incident, on the grounds that Nouh was the primary cause of the accident and had also fled the scene. “The traffic police were not very helpful, and I wasn't allowed to speak to the officer involved in the incident to find out what exactly happened, nor why my son was held for two days,” Al-Ghatm said. The investigation by the Al-Ahsa Traffic Department is expected to announce its conclusions within a week.
