By Saad Al-Ghannami

Okaz/Saudi Gazette

TAIF — Security forces in Makkah arrested a man who burned down the car of a female schoolteacher in Taif, according to a police spokesman.

He said the suspect was a Saudi man in his 30s and was apprehended in Jeddah where he had escaped after committing the crime.

The spokesman said the culprit sprayed benzene on the car in one of the residential districts of Taif on Thursday and set it ablaze before fleeing the town.

He said the car was completely burned down.

Amira, the car owner, said that the suspect was known to her and that he had threatened and terrorized her because she wanted to drive like many other women in Saudi Arabia.

She strongly denied reports that the criminal was her own brother and said she would never give up her right in sending him to court.

Amira said she would assign a lawyer to follow up her case and make sure that justice was done to her.

A number of social media activists supported Amira on Twitter and they have created a hashtag to express solidarity with her.

Several other cases of people setting fire to cars owned by women drivers were reported in the local press after the ban on women driving was lifted in Saudi Arabia in June 2018.

The first incident happened less than two months after the decision was announced. Two young men set fire to a woman’s car parked outside her home in Jamoum near Makkah.

The suspects were arrested immediately afterward but a court acquitted them for want of evidence.

In a second case of its kind, a woman’s car was burned down in front of her house in Mushrefah district of Jeddah in December 2018.

Nurhan Bassam had bought her 2016 model car only about two months ago. She was surprised that her car was burned down though the street was lighted and her house was near some vital institutions, including the traffic police station and Al-Ittihad sports club.

Following the latest incident of car burning, the official spokesman for the Makkah province police issued a statement saying the security authorities would act with firmness to deter anyone who tried to harm the safety of citizens and expatriate residents in the country.