Saudi head of police sacked for 'mingling' idea

The head of Saudi Arabia's powerful religious police has fired the chief of the Mecca branch for advocating the mixing of the sexes, an official from the force said yesterday.

Ahmed bin Qassim al-Ghamidi's suggestion in a newspaper interview that men and women should be left to mingle freely directly clashed with a central preoccupation of the force.

He was dismissed soon after, according to an official from the force.