Executed Saudi gets house, SR1 million

A Saudi royal member donated a SR500,000-house while an unknown donor offered SR1 million for the family of a Saudi man executed in the Gulf Kingdom on Tuesday on murder charges, newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Prince Abdul Aziz bin Saad said he had decided to donate the house for the wife and children of Abdullah bin Fandi Al Shammari, who had been on the death row for nearly 30 years before he was beheaded on Tuesday.

“Another benevolent person offered SR1 million for Shammari’s family while many users of social networks called for more donations…they also expressed their anger at the execution,” the Saudi Alhiad news network said.

Shammari was around 23-years old when he used a large stick to hit his victim on the head during a fight in the northwestern town of Hail more than 30 years ago, leading to his death. A court decided it was a homicide and ordered him to pay diya (blood money), after which he was released.

Five years later, he was jailed again after an appeals court sentenced him to death on murder charges.

Three years after he was released, Shammari got married and staged a big wedding, but the victim’s relatives did not want him to walk free and demanded a retrial.

Shammari, who was in his late 50s, had been saved from the gallows over the past 30 years as the court wanted to give way to efforts by relatives and friends to persuade the victim’s relatives to accept diya again and pardon him.

“While in jail, Shammari memorized the Quran and achieved many other things. The prison management named him the ‘ideal inmate’ for his role in persuading other prisoners to memories the Quran and to give up smoking. His good conduct contributed to the improvement of the behavior of hundreds of inmates,” Alsaudeh daily said.

Earlier report:

Saudi Arabia beheaded on Tuesday a man who had been on death row for three decades for beating to death a fellow Saudi, after the victim's family denied him clemency, the official SPA news agency said.

Abdullah bin Fandi al-Shammari was executed in the northern town of Hael, the agency said.

Shammari was 23 when he was arrested and jailed for beating to death Moojab bin Mohammed al-Rashidi after a row.

His trial dragged on for five years and at the time the court set him free and ordered him to pay the victim's family "blood money" after ruling Rashidi's death was involuntary homicide.

But Rashidi's family demanded a re-trial and Shammari was re-arrested, tried and sentenced to death in 1983.

He lingered on death row however because under Saudi law, the sons of the victim had to come of age and each one had to decide whether or not to accept the "blood money".

Rashidi's sons insisted the death sentence should be carried out.

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