A security police officer was killed and his colleague injured when a man fired at them early Saturday morning at the Central Area of the Grand Mosque in Makkah. Private Abdu Al-Fahimi collapsed onto the ground when four bullets tore through his head and chest. His colleague Corporal Sami Al-Mowaled, survived three bullets which struck him in the back. The two policemen, in plainclothes, had earlier stopped the man at a bus stop for suspicious behavior, according eyewitnesses. When they searched his handbag, they found a small piece of hashish. The man then backed off a few meters, pulled out a pistol, and shot at the two policemen. When they fell, he dropped his gun and waited at the crime scene. He was heard murmuring something, said eyewitnesses. Al-Mowaled crept to his police vehicle and dispatched a call for help. When the police arrived, the killer gave himself up. “I've shot them. I am here waiting for you,” he told the police officers who arrived on the scene. The killer, 30, was later identified as a former police officer who was fired from the service for possession of drugs. He is now under investigation, said Col. Abdulmohsin Al-Mayman, spokesman for the Makkah Police Department. If the man is found to be mentally unstable, he will be referred to a mental hospital for [observation and assessment], said Al-Mayman. Brig. Gen. Yousef Mattar, chief of the Makkah Police Region, had later checked on the health of the injured policeman. Al-Mowaled, who underwent surgery, is in stable condition now, said Hatem Al-Amri, director of Noor Hospital in Makkah. Al-Mowaled spoke to Okaz from his hospital bed. “Just a couple of hours before his death, Abdu told me that was planning to do his high school [diploma], so that he could get promoted and provide a better life for his wife and their daughter.” Brig. Gen. Turki Ankawi, chief of the Makkah Police Department, said that the family of martyr Al-Fahimi is in the heart of Prince Muhammad Bin Naif, Assistant Minister of Interior. The family will decide where the body will be buried. There are instructions to attend to the needs of the martyr's family, he said.
