Dammam – In a movie-like story, Saudi Arabia’s criminal court on Wednesday awarded death sentence to a woman popularly known as “Dammam Kidnapper” who kidnapped two newborns 20 years ago from a hospital in the eastern province.
The two boys who are now in their twenties went missing from a hospital in Dammam, one in 1996 and the other one in 1999. The Saudi woman, the main defendant, kidnapped them and raised them as her own children by telling them that they were born out of wedlock.
However, she did not apply for their identification cards for the fear investigation.
Parents of the missing babies lodged the police complaint back then, but the investigations into the babies’ disappearance failed to yield results until the woman after more than 20 years approached the passport department to obtain the boys’ ID cards.
The authorities conducted the required medical and technical examinations, but there was no trace of biological relationship between the woman and the boys.
Authorities grew suspicious over the matter that how could a Saudi family never obtained IDs until the boys attained puberty. After a proper investigation into the matter, the angle of the old case of missing babies was spotted.
The 1990s complainants were called for the DNA analysis. The samples concluded the relationship between the kidnapped babies and their biological parents. Eventually, the woman was arrested for detailed investigations.
Along with the woman, the court also sentenced a Yemeni man to a 25-year jail term in the case.
