Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh held on Tuesday its first trial session of twins who killed their mother and attempted to murder their father and brother after being radicalized.
Public Prosecution issued a death sentence against the twin perpetrators.
The first defendant appeared confused, speechless and disoriented when appearing for trial before three judges in a joint session, while the second defendant attended the courtroom in a wheelchair.
The public prosecutor accused them of following a takfiri ideology, stabbing and beheading their mother, attacking their father and brother with a machete with the intent to kill them, and stealing a car to escape.
Committed in June 2016, the heinous crime took place in Riyadh’s Al-Hamra neighborhood.
According to the Interior Ministry, the twins lured their mother to the storeroom where they killed her; their little sister survived by locking herself in a room.
Prosecutors said the two accused have renounced their third younger brother and are guilty of assaulting him willingly with intentions of premeditated murder.
Despite the twins’ attempt to murder the third brother, he managed to escape after sustaining a couple of blows to the head.
Reciting events of their mother’s murder, the first defendant commented that he and his twin brother had not intended to commit the crime, but were surprised to see their mother suddenly inside the house.
The two denied having any association with terrorist organizations.
The General Secretariat of the Council of Senior Scholars at the time confirmed that the horrific crime the two young men committed calls on everyone to pay closer attention to the danger of malicious takfiri ideology spreading in society—especially as ISIS works relentlessly to hold the nation’s youth as hostage to its extremist thought.
ISIS aims at directing youth to a path paved with violence, death, murder and terrorism and away from the teachings of Prophet Mohammed and the guidance of scholars.
The twin’s incident received a wave of angry criticism from the Saudi community. Gulf countries witnessed a flood of social media denunciations against ISIS and the radical ideology which forced the young men to kill their mother.
