After the Romanian, now a Saudi Arabian attack

Alleged attack by envoy
Source: Straitstimes.com

POLICE have been directed to investigate an alleged assault by a Saudi Arabian Embassy official on a condominium resident.

Mr A. Jaafar, 37, a senior executive, alleged that the Third Secretary of the Saudi Arabian Embassy here, Mr Bader I.F. Al-Balawi, attacked him when he told him not to park at a space reserved for the handicapped at Glendale Park condominium in Hillview Avenue.

He filed a Magistrate's Complaint against the embassy official, and yesterday, a magistrate ruled that the complaint was serious enough to warrant an investigation by the police.

Claudius once said in Hamlet that "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions". I suppose this too applies neatly to crimes committed by foreign embassy officials in Singapore. Especially when the other embassies see that Dr Ionescu could hit-and-fly with a diplomatic immunity.

However, before Singaporeans get all worked up and start to cancel tour packages to Jordan/Oman/Qatar/Dubai that they grabbed at the last NATAS fair, they should remember this useful advise from our leader: "we should never do anything that is not in keeping with due legal process, nor descend into trial by media. Otherwise, we will weaken our own case". Yap, Singaporeans should just stay calm and watch the police do their job.

Yes, it is still fresh on all Singaporans' mind that recently two men attacked an ambulance driver and got away on the basis of non-seizable offence, but this might be a different case. For a start, Mr A. Jaafar is not just a little ambulance driver. He is a senior executive, maybe in some big MNC or GLC, or even the statboard. And this incident happened at Glendale Park condominium, not some public HDB car park at Bukit Batok. So we should definitely be looking at two totally different cases here.

So Singaporeans should just sit down and shut up. Oh, and cross our fingers that Mr Bader I.F. Al-Balawi is still in Singapore.