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29 March 2024

Pay or die: Filipino killer told in Saudi

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By Staff

Philippine officials in Saudi Arabia are racing against time to raise SRfive million (Dh4.9 million) within five days to save a Filipino from the gallows after he was convicted of murdering a Sudanese man, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

A court in the Saudi capital Riyadh had sentenced Joselito Zapanta to death on charges of killing the Sudanese property landlord by hitting him on the head with a hammer following a scuffle triggered by a financial dispute.

After the verdict, the victim’s relatives demanded SRfive million diya (blood money) to pardon the 32-year-old killer and save him from execution.

“Philippine officials are struggling to raise SR five million to save their citizen…the deadline given by court for paying diya ends after five days,” Sabq daily said.

Under Islamic law, which is strictly enforced in conservative Saudi Arabia, a killer can escape execution and walk free if pardoned by the victim’s family in return for diya.

Diya in Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest shrines, is set at SR200,000 but the victim’s relatives are permitted to demand any sum.

Execution in Saudi Arabia, one of the most conservative Moslem nations, is carried out by beheading.

Joselito was sentenced to death in 2009 after he was found guilty of premeditated murder. But the worker pleaded self-defense, saying he accidentally killed his landlord when the latter beat him up over a dispute on rental dues.

Joselito, a father of two and a native of Mexico town in Pampanga, Philippines,, was deployed in Riyadh in October 2008 as a tile setter.

But he later ran away from his original employer, claiming he was not being paid his salary. He eventually found a new job and rented a room under the Sudanese national.

He has been in Malaz Central Jail in Riyadh since June 2009.