Jeddah Municipality Awaits Fatwa On Rawdah Cemetery
20 January 2017
By Tariq A. Al-Maeena
JEDDAH – Jeddah Municipality has recognized the existence of the remains of
the dead at a construction site in the district of Baghdadiah. In a statement
it said that a committee has been formed consisting members from Jeddah
province, Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice,
Jeddah Municipality and the General Court). The committee considered
consulting the Grand Mufti by the Jeddah General Court to issue a fatwa about
the land of the north-eastern side of the Rawdah cemetry, an Al-Madina report
said.
The municipality confirmed in a statement that the site is considered for an
investment project and not a cemetery. Before being proposed for the project,
the land was a park dedicated to a kindergarten. Before offering the site for
bidding, it was used as a car parking lot for several years. The municipality
explained that the investment bidding and award procedures and contract
signing were certified for a kindergarten. ''The project is almost finished
with construction and during periods of digging the foundations, construction
and follow-up did not show any traces of dead people for the cemetery, and
only when digging to install the sewage tank in the northwestern part the
remains of bones and so on appeared 7.5 m from the building,'' noting that
work has stopped until the issuance of the fatwa.
The legal representative of the investor Khaled Al-Ghamdi, said: ''We are
waiting for the decision of the municipality to issue a decision to cancel the
contract and its dissolution and then we will demand them to indemnify us for
the losses that investors bore in excess of SR15 million since the beginning
of the project and until the pausing of work.''
Lawyer and legal adviser Khaled Al-Mehmadi said that the investor must go to
the Administrative Court and demand cancellation of the contract and then
claim compensation for construction and rescue losses and the value of what he
paid since the beginning of the bidding and even suspension of the project as
well as to claim compensation for losses sustained throughout the period of
the project.
— Dr. Khaled M. Batarfi is a Saudi writer based in Jeddah. He can be
reached at kbatarfi@gmail.com. Follow him at Twitter:@kbatarfi
Add Comments