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Riyadh: A Saudi prince has paid over Dh100,000 in blood money to secure the life of a convicted murderer, who has waited 18 years on death row, a report in Al-Watan daily has said.
The crown prince, Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, who is also defence minister of Saudi Arabia, paid the blood money to the family of the murder victim, Ismail Ali al-Zahrani, so that the family would spare the life of his killer, Salah Mussaed al-Zahrani, the report said.
Salah Mussaed al-Zahrani has already spent an unprecedented 18 years on death row waiting for the victim's son, Othman, to reach adulthood in order to decide whether to accept the blood money and spare his life, the report added.
Saudi Arabia applies a strict form of sharia, or Islamic law. Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry the death penalty and at least 37 people
were executed last year.
But convicts can be spared if the victim's family agrees to accept the payment of blood money, or diya in Arabic,instead.
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