Focus on gold ring in case of missing Saudi
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A RELATIVE of missing Saudi Arabia businessman Mohammad al-Ruwaili does not believe the gold ring, which led to the re-opening of the case, belonged to his brother.
In an exclusive interview with The Nation yesterday, Matrouk al-Ruwili, who is in town to testify in the case of his brother who went missing in 1989, said his brother was a very religious man, so there was no way that he would wear a golden ring.
“Muslim men wear only silver. Women could wear silver or gold. He [Mohammad] would never wear this ring,” Matrouk said. Matrouk and Ateeg al-Ruwaili, the businessman’s other brother, will testify in the trial today.
“We have to tell the truth about the ring. This is something that we did not want to be [misleading], even if it would prove someone was involved in this – but no, we have to tell the truth about the ring,” Matrouk said.
Asked if it was possible that the businessman’s disappearance was connected to internal issues in Saudi Arabia, Matrouk said Mohammed had never been involved in politics.
Public prosecutors earlier said UAE-based Kiattikorn Kaewphalue (known formerly as Pol Lt-Colonel Suwitchai Kaewphalue) possessed knowledge of a gold ring worn by al-Ruwaili, which had led to the reopening of the case and the current trial involving five policemen suspected of having been behind the disappearance of al-Ruwaili.
Pol Lt-General Somkhid Bunthanom, one of the five suspects in al-Ruwaili’s disappearance trial, accused public prosecutors, police investigators and Department of Special Investigation agents of getting Kiattikorn out of the country illegally, after immigration officers detected his plan for banned overseas travel. Matrouk said he was under no pressure to testify in the trial and would feel nothing if placed face to face with the defendants.
What the family wanted was the truth and for those who abducted his brother to be punished, he said. “Let us imagine that your family member went missing – you would certainly want to know the truth,” he said.Thailand’s relations with Saudi Arabia have been frosty ever since a Thai worker stole jewellery belonging to the Saudi royal family in 1989. A year later, a Saudi businessman investigating the case was allegedly abducted and presumably killed in Bangkok, followed by the murder of three Saudi diplomats in the city.
