Dubai: An Egyptian pharmacist Ahmad Hatem Madi has been shot dead by a Saudi woman who was refused antibiotics without a prescription, local media reported.
The unnamed assailant was arrested immediately following the shooting. Dispensing medicine, including antibiotics, without a prescription is illegal and punishable by law in Saudi Arabia.
The killer is said to have entered the pharmacy and askedfor the medicine. When he refused and turned his back to her, she shot him three times.
Madi leaves behind a young son, a wife and a father battling cancer, whose treatment costs he was shouldering.
In a statement by the Ministry of Emigration, released on its Facebook page, Ambassador Nabila Akram extended her condolences to the deceased’s family, and confirmed that measures were taken to repatriate his body for the burial.
His wife said she travelled with the victim to Saudi Arabia last year, but returned 20 days ago on a promise from him that he would return to spend Eid Al Adha holiday in Egypt.
She added, in a live broadcast to Al Masry Al Youm, that the sponsor promised to grant her husband permission to go back to Egypt for Eid Al Adha, but he kept procrastinating, explaining: “At the appointed time, he told him there is no going back [to Egypt] because there is no one to cover for him [at work]. Ahmed begged him to travel to see his sick father.”
“Ahmad was supposed to return to Egypt three days before Eid,” but the his sponsor refused, which prompted her husband to tell him that he would send him a notice of his resignation, explaining that his contract was already to expire on August 27.
“Ahmad has been in Saudi Arabia for a year and three months, and he has been working for 14 hours a day to provide for his family and treatment of his father,” she continued.
“Even on Fridays, he did not take an off,” she claimed.
