Briton victim of 'atrocity'
John Innes, Scotsman.com, August 19, 2004

A BRITISH oil executive shot dead in a suspected al-Qaeda attack in Saudi Arabia was the victim of a "cold-blooded atrocity", according to his devastated wife. The full horror of the attacks on 29 May in which 61-year-old Michael Hamilton and 21 others died, emerged at his inquest.

The father-of-two, originally from Kilmarnock in Ayrshire, was shot at least nine times as he sat in his car at the headquarters of a major oil firm in Al Khobar where he had worked since 1989. The Islamic militants shot him in the chest at close range and then tied his body to the back of their car before dragging it through the streets for more than a mile.

Mr Hamilton’s body was found near a roundabout after the rope snapped, the inquest heard. Moments before the 7am killing, Mr Hamilton, who lived in Rye, East Sussex when visiting the UK, dropped his wife, Penelope, at a residential compound near the Araba Petroleum Investments Corporation, where he worked. [... more]

- posted by ARYABHATT @ 4:28 pm