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SAUDI ARABIA: PHILIPPINES RACES TO RAISE MONEY TO SAVE MURDER CONVICT ON DEATH ROW
March 12, 2013: Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has suspended executions of Filipinos for three months, giving a Filipino worker on death row an unexpected reprieve after his family and the Philippine government failed to meet a deadline to raise compensation money to pay the victim's family, officials said.
Vice President Jejomar Binay, who is also the presidential adviser on Filipino workers overseas, said a senior Saudi official informed the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh on Monday (March 11) that the Saudi king has postponed the executions, including that of Filipino murder convict Joselito Zapanta, until June 8.
President Benigno Aquino III has written the Saudi king requesting for more time to raise $1 million demanded by the family of the Sudanese landlord killed by Zapanta in 2009, said Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez.
The deadline for raising the money was Tuesday (March 12) but no execution date has been disclosed, he said.
Hernandez said only $245,055 has been raised in private and government contributions.
"This is a blessing from God," Binay said in a statement. "However, this does not mean that the victim's wife has agreed to extend the deadline for the family of Joselito to raise the 'blood money'."
Binay said Aquino and Zapanta's mother separately wrote King Abdullah on Saturday (March 9) "to ask for help."
Binay said Zapanta was visited by his mother and a Philippine embassy staff member the following day.
The Saudi newspaper Al-Watan reported on Sunday (March 10) that a ministerial committee was looking into formally dropping public beheadings as a method of execution in the oil-rich kingdom and considering fatal shootings as an alternative. (Sources: Ap, 12/03/2013)
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