MUSCAT // Omani police on Monday arrested a suspect in a drug-related killing in a small town in eastern Oman a day earlier.
Witnesses said they heard several gunshots on Sunday evening in the town of Jalan Bani Ali, about 320 kilometres south of the capital, Muscat.
“I heard the gunshots, in a rapid succession – must be three or four shots. It happened when I was taking my usual evening walk in this quiet neighbourhood of a few houses. I saw this man running out of a house with a gun in his hand,” said Ahmed Al Haremi, a resident of the town.
Police did not identify the suspect but an officer close to the investigations said he was an Omani in his 40s.
"It was a drug-related murder and the man is believed to be a drug peddler. That's all we can reveal at the moment," the officer told The National.
Mr Haremi said the victim was an unemployed Omani in his early 30s. He lived with his parents and had “no previous known record of tangling with the law”.
“He was an everyday kind of man, in and out of work but of good conduct. As for the murderer, he is not from this area and the police will not tell anybody who exactly the man is,” Mr Haremi said.
Another resident, who knew the victim but asked not to be identified, said the local community was shocked by the killing.
“It never happened here before. This is the first time someone has been shot. There is a rumour of drugs being involved. That is also something this community cannot relate to,” he said.
“We know Omanis get themselves in drug problems but in this quiet and law-abiding town, we find it hard to comprehend that.”
Oman has been struggling for years to contain drug trafficking by smugglers who take advantage of the country’s long coastline which is difficult to monitor.
The government spent about US$60 million (Dh220m) in 2015 to beef up its coastal patrols by speed boats, according to statistics from the finance ministry.
The ministry of health says the number of drug users in Oman has more than tripled since 2010 – from 2,000 to 6,500.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
