SAUDI ARABIA: DAD’S PARDON SAVES THREE CONVICTS FROM GALLOWS

March 6, 2011: a Saudi appeal court reversed a death sentence against three teen agers found guilty of causing the death of a little boy who they had tried to rape after his father agreed to pardon them in return for blood money.
In a report from the western Red Sea port of Jeddah, Okaz newspaper said the three would be saved and freed only after their relatives paid all the diya (blood money) set by the court at SR2.8 million ($755,000).
But the paper quoted relatives of the three convicts, aged 15-18 years, that they would not be able to secure that sum given their poor financial resources, adding that they count on benevolent people in the Gulf Kingdom to save their sons.
The three defendants, a Saudi, Yemeni and a Sudanese, snatched the boy near his house seven years ago and took him to a roof of a building to rape him. But he resisted and tried to escape, plunging to his death from the top.
But the victim’s father, a Yemeni, had told court that he was convinced the three threw his son off the roof after he resisted their rape attempt.
A court in Jeddah earlier sentenced the three to death by beheading but the appeal court this week reversed the verdict after strenuous mediation efforts by friends and relatives persuaded the victim’s father to accept diya. (Sources: Emirates247.com, 06/03/2011)