Expat Mugged and Beaten Up
BATTERED: Bhoy Macion, a Filipino worker, who claimed he was mugged and beaten up by four men on Thursday night in a Riyadh neighborhood. (AN photo)
A Filipino worker here has claimed that five Arabic-speaking men robbed him of his money and beat him up.
The men had forced him off the road and demanded his car key, wallet and cell phone, said Bhoy Macion, who is well-known in the Filipino community and comes from Southern Leyte. The incident took place on Thursday night in the Al-Wazarat area.
“They were driving in a red Honda car and cut me off. When I wound down the driver’s seat window, one of them asked me if I had car insurance,” said Macion, who works for a local furniture firm, and organized the martial arts group Black Python that was involved in Philippine Embassy programs.
He said three of them got out of their car, one held his neck while another tried to get the car key. The third man opened the back door of his car. The two others then opened the doors on the other side of his car, said Macion.
Macion said that when he refused to hand over his car key, one of the men hit him in the face with a piece of iron. The others took his wallet with his driver’s license, SR675 in cash and identification cards.
“I took the car key and got out of the car. Three of them went back to their car, while the other two confronted me. At this point, I was forced to use my martial arts skills. They eventually joined their three companions and sped off,” he said
He said he chased after them but could not catch up. He reported the incident to the police. “I thank the police in the area. They conducted a thorough investigation,” he said. Macion said he later went to a nearby clinic to have the wound in his face stitched.
Macion said the police told him that the red Honda belonged to an Indian man who had been carjacked earlier. They also said that there had been several muggings in the area recently.
A week earlier, Salman Ali Jammoul, a Lebanese man working at a popular restaurant, was walking at about 1:45 a.m. in the Hay Dhubat area, near a hotel along Airport Road, when a group of four men in a white car mugged him. The men took his wallet containing SR5,400 and cell phone. He reported the incident to the Malaz police.
Another Filipino, Jun Perez, 53, told Arab News that he was mugged a few months ago by four men, who took his wallet, cash, identity cards and cell phone.