ABHA: A four-year-old boy accidentally killed his father while playing with a firearm in the Mahd Al-Dahab region of Madinah province.
Col. Muhsin Al-Radadi, Madinah police spokesman, told Arab News that the father who went to a shop left his child and a cousin in the car. When the father returned his son shot him by mistake while playing with a loaded firearm the man had kept unsecured in his car.
“There is no criminal involvement,” said Al-Radadi.
According to Sultan bin Zahim, a lawyer based in Madinah, minors (defined in Shariah as anyone who has not passed puberty) are not punished for such an act. Guardians of children can in some cases be found guilty of negligence.
In a similar incident in Baha, police are investigating a recent case of a seven-year-old boy who accidentally killed his 33-year-old cousin while playing with a firearm.
In this case the child is also not being held responsible, but it’s not clear if relatives can be charged for negligence related to keeping a loaded firearm within reach of a child.
Hadi Al-Yami, lawyer and a member of the governmental Human Rights Commission, said minors in these cases could receive “simple legal punishment depending on what the judge sees.”
Such rulings also depend on the involvement of others in the crime and what the victims or victims’ families ask in compensation.
Several incidents have been reported of mistake killings that take place during marriage ceremonies and festivals, where many people express their happiness by shooting in the open.
This summer several such killings took place, including that of a 28-year-old Saudi in the Eastern Province.
A two-year-old girl died from a bullet wound in the central region of the Kingdom when her father was cleaning a gun he didn’t realize was loaded.
Shooting firearms into the air is dangerous for another reason: What comes up must come down, and falling bullets have been known to injure or even kill unfortunate people.
Hunting trips can also result in accidental death or injury.
— With input by Fatima Sidiya
