The Ministry of Interior carried out the death sentence against Pakistani nationals Bashir Hassan Afridi and his compatriot Rahmaht Al-Wahab Abdulrahman Abdullah earlier this week for the murder of their accomplice Muhammed Yacoub Haji, two Indonesian women and a fetus. The case goes back nearly 12 years when Afridi, Abdullah, Haji and another man ran a profitable money-laundering business from an apartment building in Makkah. The group transferred millions of riyals to a Gulf country and then to Pakistan. Haji, the brain behind the operation, had become involved in a conflict with the other members of the group and they decided to kill him. Forcing him to drink juice laced with sleeping pills, they strangled him once he had passed out and then chopped his body into pieces. However, as they were disposing of the body, an Indonesian maid, who Haji had been having an illicit affair with, came into the apartment. The group then killed and buried her in a remote area. An informed security source told Okaz several days after they had murdered the maid that they received a phone call from another maid inquiring about her friend. When the group denied any knowledge of her, she threatened to go to authorities. They then asked her to come to the apartment to meet her friend. Once she arrived, they strangled her and then discovered she was pregnant. The group then buried the fetus and the maid's body in the apartment and moved out. Police were alerted to the heinous crime after receiving a report from the apartment's owner who had come across the corpses of the Indonesian woman and her fetus. Authorities then began an investigation and linked the murders to the three men. Director of Prisons in Makkah, Maj. Gen. Atia Othman Al-Zahrani, pointed out that the third accomplice in the gang died of natural causes a year ago while in prison. Al-Zahrani added, “The Supreme Court approved the death sentence of the three Pakistani men for murdering their fellow citizen, chopping his body into pieces and murdering two Indonesian women one of whom was pregnant in addition to murdering her fetus in a brutal way revealing the persistence of crime in their souls, especially considering that the crime was committed during the month of Ramadan in the central area of the holy city of Makkah.” Abdulrahman Al-Rimi, who lives a few meters away from the crime scene, accompanied Okaz for a tour inside the now-abandoned apartment where the murders were committed. “We don't know who the owner of this house is as he abandoned it several years ago. But the ugly crimes committed here shocked residents of the area,” said Al
