Saudi Gazette report ABHA — Over two months ago, three Americans attacked Ali Al-Assaf, a Saudi student in the United States, after he left a restaurant in the state of Idaho. There was no clear reason why they jumped on him and left him with smashed fingers and scars all over his body. They even reportedly tried to kill him. Al-Assaf told Al-Watan daily he frequented the restaurant at night to meet his Saudi friends. He said one night when he just came out of the restaurant, three young American men approached him out of the blue and started calling him names. Worried and scared, he decided not to respond to the abuse and kept heading for his car. Police arrived on the scene and Al-Assaf directly went to the officer and told him about the young men's behavior. “The officer asked me aggressively to go home,” Al-Assaf said. He listened to the advice and drove home. By the time he parked his car near the house where he lived, he saw the same three men waiting for him at the entrance of the parking lot. There was no way Al-Assaf could escape the confrontation. They quickly surrounded his car and pulled him out. They screamed verbal abuse at him while Al-Assaf kept silent. All of a sudden, one of them attacked Al-Assaf from behind and tried to strangle him while another brought a big rock and hit him in the head, knocking him unconscious. He came to a few minutes later to find that all three had held him down before one of them smashed Al-Assaf's fingers. When they heard police sirens, they ran away. The officer called 911 and Al-Assaf was rushed to hospital. Three men were arrested in connection with the case. The first thing the Saudi student did the next day was to call the Saudi Cultural Attaché. The lawyer appointed by the Saudi mission, a Sudanese man, answered the phone and told Al-Assaf, after listening to his story, that the Saudi mission could not do anything for him. “He told me to handle the situation myself. He said he would provide me with advice and consultancy help should I need it. That was all they could do for me. Then he hung up on me.” Al-Assaf had asked the lawyer to refer the case to the Saudi Embassy in Washington. A month later, an officer from the embassy called Al-Assaf and told him to contact the embassy if there were any further developments. “When I told him I needed help, he said the embassy could not do anything for me.” Al-Assaf had to pay a lot of money for medical treatment and started facing many difficulties because he needed help to perform daily activities such as going to the bathroom as his injured hands were in casts. As it had become more and more difficult to get around easily, he called the cultural attaché and asked for his semester to be postponed until he completed medical treatment. However, he was told by the person in charge that if he applied for postponement, he would not be able to use the insurance policy. “I told him I wanted to withdraw from this semester because it was hard for me to move around, let alone do anything with two hands in plaster.” Al-Assaf called the lawyer appointed by the American authorities the next day and asked him about the latest developments of the case. The lawyer asked him to be careful and not to go out late at night because the three young men had been released on bail. Al-Assaf talked to the university's administration and asked them to install surveillance cameras in the dormitory where he lived. The administration immediately installed the cameras to protect him. “One of the three men was still underage and he did not stand trial. I don't know why. Police said he was drunk and did not know what he was doing.” He said because he was a Muslim Arab student, police discriminated against him. For two months, he kept showing up at the police station two to three times a week to pick up a detailed report about the case. However, officers did not give any report. Then a newspaper wrote about his case. “All of a sudden my cell phone started ringing non-stop. The police were calling me to come and pick up the report.” Al-Assaf has not been able to attend classes for three months and he might have to stay for another two months to see what happens in the case. If he leaves the US now and does not show up at the court, he will lose the case. His car was badly damaged and he does not have enough money to get by. He said Dr. Muhammad Al-Issa, the Saudi cultural attaché, is a good man but some embassy officers do not keep him posted on what is going on. “My story was published in two American dailies and Dr. Al-Issa doesn't know about it. How come?” Al-Watan tried to contact Al-Issa several times but he did not respond to calls.
