JEDDAH: King Salman has thanked Interior Minister Prince Abdul Aziz bin Saud for the security services’ work in bringing down the crime rate in the past year, the Saudi Press Agency reported. In a cable of gratitude on Sunday, King Salman said: “We have read your Highness’ cable ... regarding the positive results of the performance indicators of the Ministry of Interior’s security services for the period from June 25, 2017, to April 18, 2018, compared to the same period in the previous year, which showed a significant improvement in the decline in crime rates in general. “The rate of intentional homicide dropped by 6.5 percent, honor crimes dropped by 14.5 percent, thefts by 2 percent, and armed robberies by 10.5 percent. “The number of road traffic accidents decreased by 19.7 percent, the number of fatalities decreased by 19.1 percent, and the number of casualties decreased by 15.9 percent. “In the area of border security and combating drug trafficking, the performance in seizing smugglers rose by 7.1 percent, in controlling the borders and preventing infiltrations rose by 35.5 percent, and in arresting those who are convicted of illegal narcotics drug crimes by 34.95 percent. “In tracking and arresting violators of residency and labor laws and border security, the measures currently adopted for joint security field campaigns (the A Nation without a Violator campaign) resulted in seizing 987,007 violations to date.” King Salman thanked the minister and everyone working in all the ministry’s sectors “for these outstanding achievements and successive accomplishments that reflect the efforts made and the steady improvement in performance levels, which led to a significant and obvious decline in crime rates and a rise in the level of safety.” Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman also sent a cable of gratitude to the interior minister for the positive results. He thanked the prince for the excellent performance of the Interior Ministry’s security services which showed a significant reduction of crime in the fields of premeditated murder, honor, armed robbery, traffic, border security as well as Iqama, labor and border-crossing violators.