25-year old chops off 18-month-old boy's head in Saudi Arabia

Jeddah: An 18-month-old child was decapitated by his uncle in full public view at a shopping mall in the city's Al Salam district on Sunday morning, police and witnesses said.

The horrific crime was allegedly the result of a family dispute.

The 25-year-old Arab expatriate cut off the boy's head before security forces arrived and arrested him. According to sources, the man was a frequent visitor to the mall, and he used to bring the child to the mall's toy corner.

Scream

"I was shopping when I heard a scream and saw people running toward the shop's pastry corner," said Ahmad Abdul Rahman, a shopper.

"When I arrived there, I couldn't believe what I saw. The headless body of a child lay on the floor and the head was lying nearby soaked in blood," Abdul Rahman recounted.

Shoppers anticipate that the man might have grabbed the knife from the home appliances corner of the mall.

A media spokesman for Jeddah Police Lieutenant Colonel Suleiman Al Ghorair said primary investigations reveal that the offender was the child's maternal uncle.

The offender admitted to committing the crime and attributed the reason to family conflict between his sister and her husband, said Al Ghorair.