A Ukrainian killer who has been in jail in Sharjah for nearly eight years could walk free and return to his family but all this depends on paying Dh40,000.
Andriy Shevchenko, 48, has already managed to raise around Dh210,000 and needs that sum to pay Dh250,000 diya (blood money) to the victim’s relatives or he could stay in prison for many more years.Shevchenko had already escaped death when the criminal court in Sharjah annulled its capital punishment against him after the family of the murdered Syrian man pardoned him and asked for blood money under Islamic law.
“With the help of friends and benevolent people, I have so far succeeded in raising nearly Dh210,000…only around Dh40,000 is left for me to pay all the diya…I appeal for all good people to help me so I can leave prison and return to my wife and son in Ukraine,” he said, quoted by 'Emarat Alyoum' daily.
Shevchenko came to the UAE with his wife and son, now 20, in early 2003 and started his own business in Sharjah. He then began to deal with a local typing and translation office owned by a Syrian man.“I was doing translation work in Ukrainian and Arabic for them….one day I was in that office when we had a heated argument about business,” he said.
“The argument turned into a fight with the Syrian man and I clutched a knife on his desk and stabbed him…he died in hospital later…what happened at that time was out of my control and I still feel very sorry to have killed an innocent person.”Shevchenko said his wife and son left the UAE soon after he was jailed, adding that the incident cost him his “business and freedom.”
“All I want now is to pay the diya and return to Ukraine to be with my family again…I just want to start a new life there.”