An expert team from Riyadh came to Dhaka yesterday to assist local officials in the probe into the March 6 shooting of Saudi embassy official Khalaf AlAli.

The eight-member delegation, comprising officials of Saudi Arabian foreign and home ministries, arrived at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport around noon, said Maruf Hassan, a joint commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (Detective Branch).

The identities of its members — Khalid Al Khamis, Mohammad Al Brasin, Faisal Al Simali, Mohammad Al Gambi, Faisal Al Mutiri, Abdullah Al Sharani, Yiahia Al Shai and Saleh Al Hamid — could not be known immediately.

They were staying at Hotel Radisson and did not visit the crime scene yet. They held no meeting with any officials of the Bangladesh government either, Maruf Hasan, who received the group at the airport, toldThe Daily Star last evening. Masudur Rahman, additional deputy commissioner of DMP (Media and Community Service), earlier in the afternoon said the Saudi team would assist the DB officials investigating the murder of Khalaf AlAli.

The 45-year-old embassy official was shot dead some 30 yards off his house in the city's Gulshan early on March 6. Investigators are yet to announce any progress in the murder probe or arrest anybody.

"The team will hold meetings with officials of home and foreign ministries, police and intelligence agencies about the investigation," Masud Rahman said. "The Saudi team will stay here for three to four days."

Yesterday, the Arab News quoted Alauddin Alaskari, deputy foreign minister for protocol affairs of the Saudi Arabia, as saying the objective of the team was to identify the culprits and bring them to book.

The English-language daily also reported without any attribution that there was apprehension of beginning of a real crisis centring two million Bangladeshi workers in the kingdom, if the Bangladesh government fails to identify the culprits within the shortest span of time.

Even after a month of the murder of Khalaf Al-Ali, the government miserably failed to make any headway in the case, the Saudi newspaper wrote.

“The police in that coun-try has nothing to offer...who were the killers? What was the motive behind the killing? The police has simply no answers,” the Arab News report quoted a Saudi official as saying.

Police in Bangladesh should intensify efforts to capture the men behind the heinous crime, said the official who was not named.

The Saudi ambassador to Dhaka, Abudllah Al Bussairy, who was in Riyadh recently, also expressed his deep sorrow on the murder of his staffer and voiced concerns over the investigation, it reported.