Minister condemns Saudi murder
The body of an Irish man shot dead in Saudi Arabia will not be brought home for two weeks, it emerged tonight.
Anthony Christopher Higgins from Galway city spent 27 years working in the Middle East state.
The body of the 63-year-old engineer must be embalmed and placed in a zinc-lined coffin before being flown home.
The Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed the Irish embassy in Riyadh was discussing the repatriation of the remains with the Higgins family.
Foreign Affairs Minister Brian Cowan condemned the murder of Mr Higgins.
“A cold-blooded attack of this sort, on a civilian worker such as Mr Higgins, is repugnant and shocking, and will be perceived so internationally. I expect that the Saudi authorities will do everything in their power to bring his killers to justice,” he said.
Mr Higgins, who was working for a Saudi-owned construction company called Rocky for Trade and Construction, had flown home at regular two-month intervals. He was due to return to Ireland in three weeks.
He was killed when at least two armed men stormed into his office yesterday and began shooting.
Saudi newspapers today published graphic photos of Mr Higgins’ body lying on the office floor.
Mr Higgins grew up in Ballybrit in Galway city before moving to the suburb of Mervue.
The former Mayor of Galway Councillor Terry O’Flaherty said she had known Mr Higgins and his extended family very well.
“I found him a very eloquent person and always a gentlemen. It’s a tragedy and I feel very sad over it.”
A close family relative who did not wish to be named said the family was devastated by the death.
“We are very upset at this time as you can imagine,” she added.
One of Mr Higgins’ sisters was the well-known poet Rita Ann Higgins. His brother Joe is the chairman of Galway Airport and another brother Máirtín is the manager of the Mervue United soccer team.
Mervue parish priest Fr Willie Cummins expressed sympathy to the Higgins family, who he said were well-known and well-respected in the local area.
“It’s a terrible tragedy for the whole family, especially when it happened so far away from home.
“Tony should have been looking forward to a long and happy retirement but instead he was the victim of this terrible attack.”
Galway Labour TD Michael D Higgins also expressed sympathy to the Mr Higgins’ family.
“It is a horrific event and it is quite mindless. It’s just tragic that someone who was in the evening of his life and should be looking forward to his retirement had to die in this way.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs has advised Irish citizens against non-essential travel to Saudi Arabia. It said citizens living in the country should maintain the highest levels of security.
Mr Higgins said it was sad that an Irish passport, which had so many positive associations with the work of Irish UN peacekeepers, no longer conferred immunity in the Middle East.
“After the war in Iraq, the entire region has descended into lawlessness. As a US congressman said, the illegal invasion of Iraq was the equivalent of putting up a recruiting poster for every group that was agitating in the region,” he said.
He urged the Department of Foreign Affairs to provide Mr Higgins’ family with the full information about his death.
Mr Higgins was the second Irish national shot dead by Saudi militants in two months in what appears to have been another attack targeting western nationals.
BBC cameraman Simon Cumbers, 36, from Navan in Co Meath, was shot and killed while filming a militant’s family home in Riyadh on June 6.
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