TABUK — The owner of a Tabuk well, where six-year-old Lama Al-Rouqi fell to her death in January, has denied charges of negligence and said the well was tightly closed long before the accident. After a long silence, Solaiman Khidir Al-Omrani, told local daily Al-Watan on Tuesday that he is a law-abiding citizen and that he immediately closed down the well after the governorate asked him to do so. Al-Omrani expressed anger at the huge criticism leveled against him without real evidence and said he had no idea about the investigations. He recalled that in 2005 he obtained the approval of the directorate general of water to dig a well in Al-Asmar valley, south of Haql region in Tabuk. "Two years later, the governorate asked me to close down the well because the location belonged to the Ministry of Defense and I did," he said. His son, Abdul Majeed, was surprised by the magnitude of accusations and criticisms against his father, who was not called to take part in any of the investigations related to the case. "My father had no idea about the investigations until at the very end," he said. Abdul Majeed said two years after his farther was given the approval to dig the well, he was summoned by Haql police who asked him to vacate the area and made him sign a pledge to this effect. "Following this, we closed down the opening of the well with a three-meter long pipe and dumped its bottom," he said. He said they collected all their belongings from the area of the well when they vacated the location. "We put all our equipment in a truck, whose driver testified in our favor," he said. Abdul Majeed denied the claims that his father had re-dug the well after he had signed a pledge to close it down. "Why would my father lose his money unnecessarily on digging a well which he was asked to close down?" he said. The son said he was surprised by some reports that said after they left the location, the municipality bended the pipe on the well's mouth. "The municipality does not have any equipment to pierce a 16-inch thick pipe," he claimed. Abdul Majeed said they have all the necessary documents proving that they are no longer responsible for the well after they had abandoned the location. He said they will also ask the witnesses who testified against them before the investigation committees to swear on the Qur'an that what they said was true. Meanwhile, the spokesman of the Civil Defense in Tabuk said investigations into the well were not yet completed and they would be made public once they were over.
