09 October 2024 :
A Filipino was executed in Saudi Arabia over the murder of a Saudi national, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on October 8, 2024.
The Philippine Embassy in Riyadh confirmed there was an execution, however there has been "no official confirmation from Saudi authorities" as of writing, the DFA said in a statement.
The DFA maintained that they did "all we could" to halt the execution or minimize the punishment, but the victim's family advocated for the death penalty.
"We did all we could: court appeal, presidential letter of appeal, trying to get the victim’s family to accept blood money… in the end, these efforts were not successful as the victim’s family insisted on the death penalty instead of accepting blood money," DFA said.
While DFA withheld details of the case for privacy reasons, it said the Filipino was tried for the murder of a Saudi national "over money."
"The family of the Filipino does NOT want publicity over the case. Out of deference to their wishes, and out of respect to their privacy, we will withhold details on the case. We appeal to the media and the public to understand and heed the wishes of the family," the agency said.
Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega later said that the Filipino has been on death row in Saudi Arabia since March 2022 for the crime that happened in 2020.
"He was given full legal assistance. The only way to save his life would have been approval from the family of blood money compensation. However, it was refused. So we did conduct regular jail visits and when the President wrote to the King of Saudi Arabia, the Saudi government issued a postponement of the execution," de Vega said.
According to de Vega, the Filipino did not deny killing the victim, a Saudi national with whom he had a business venture.
"The victim was asking our kababayan for his share in the profits or something, and they had a money dispute and that led to the confrontation," he said. "He hit the Saudi national's head twice with some hammer."
"Not only did he kill him, but he tried to ship him out of their country, ship the corpse out of the country. In fact, he wanted to have him transported to the Philippines, the corpse. So he never denied that it happened," he added.
