Yemeni suspect identified and investigated MAKKAH – The investigations of a forensic team will determine if a 15-year-old Algerian girl who recently plunged to her death from a Makkah hotel had been raped, an official said. Dr. Abdul Aziz Malebari, director of the Forensic Department in Makkah, said the forensic team rushed to the scene of the incident, where the teen-age girl either jumped to her death or was deliberately pushed off a higher floor of the hotel onto the roof of an adjacent low-rise hotel. The team initially examined the body and found that she had fractures to her head and legs and bruises on different parts of her body. Malebari said the autopsy, which will be carried out Saturday, will determine the cause of the death and if the girl was raped. Investigators will look for blood coagulation and bruises on certain parts of her body and other evidence that could reveal a sexual assault He said the forensic team will also take a blood sample to determine if she was given any poisons or drugs, a step that is usually taken in cases of trauma or if there are suspicions of suicide. “These analyses serve as guiding principle of forensics,” he said. A source said the main suspect in the case is a Yemeni national named Ammar, who has told authorities that he knew the girl for a short time but denied killing her. The source added that Ammar told investigators, “I met her just a few days ago and I had no intentions to kill or hurt her.” He said he met her a night before the incident and made a date to see her in one of the rooms in the upper part of the hotel where he worked; the place where the Algerian pilgrimage mission stays. The suspect brought fried chicken dinner and had a talk with her, he told the investigators. The source said another Yemeni national, Jalal, who works at the hotel as a luggage porter, told investigators that he heard about the girl's disappearance, went to an upper place at the hotel to relax and was surprised to find her with Ammar. Jalal told investigators he found Ammar in his underwear and the girl was wearing a pair of pants and T-shirt. Jalal said he had a heated argument with Ammar and urged him to tell the girl to leave because her family was looking for her, according to sources. A source quoted Jalal as saying in his testimony, “Ammar asked me not to interfere or even to reveal the girl's whereabouts. I fought with him to make him hand over the girl to her family.” Jalal said that during the fight, Ammar asked the girl to leave the room and escape before her family found her with him. Jalal told investigators that he left the girl in the room and went to the hotel lobby, where he found her guardian and the receptionist talking to an Asian worker who reported the fall of a girl from a higher roof of the hotel, according to sources. “This coincided with the report made by Jalal to the hotel management that the girl was with Ammar,” the source said. The source added that the girl's guardian Abu Madyan Al-Khateeb and some of her relatives climbed to the roof of the adjacent hotel, found the girl's body, and reported the incident. Authorities rushed to the scene and apprehended Ammar, Jalal and two Bangladeshis who were found on the roof repairing a satellite dish, sources said. Major Abdul Mohsen Al-Mayiman, Makkah Police spokesman said, “The investigating team has interrogated all the arrested suspects. The team has already handed over the incident's file to the Commission for Investigation and Prosecution.” Sources expect that the suspects will appear next week at the General Court in Makkah to have their statements documented. The Algerian girl, Sarah, was scheduled to leave Algerian Umrah Mission on the same morning of the incident. She was born in France in 1995 and she was a first-year secondary student. Sarah, who was diligent in her studies and planned to study medicine, had been staying with her mother, who left Algeria when she was five, sources said.
