Appeals for victim’s relatives to accept blood money went viral on social media
Saudi Arabia on Monday executed a local man who was convicted of murdering another Saudi during a fight a few years despite a flood of online appeals for the victim’s relatives to pardon him, newspapers reported.
The Interior Ministry, in a statement carried by the local press, said it had executed Dhafir bin Hadi Al Baltaheen by a firing squad for killing Ayed bin Mohammed Al Qashanin during a scuffle in the southern province of Najran.
Social networks in the Middle East’s most conservative Muslim nation went viral on Sunday with public appeals for the victim’s relatives to accept diya (blood money) and pardon the killer in line with Islamic law.
The Ministry said the defendant had confessed to killing Qashanin by a machine gun during the fight and that the death sentence was approved by the supreme court.
Newspapers did not specify the age of the killer and the victim but Sabq daily had earlier indicated Baltaheen would be executed after the victim’s family rejected mediation bids by tribal chiefs over the past years to pardon the defendant.
Under Islamic law, which is enforced to the letter in Saudi Arabia, a killer can be saved from execution and set free if pardoned by the victim’s relatives for diya.
Source: Emirate, 24/7, November 4, 2013
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