Execution put off for now
Om Astha Rai
In what comes as a huge relief to the family of Umesh Yadav, a Nepali worker convicted of killing a Pakistani national, the death sentence slapped by a Saudi Arabian court against him has been put off for the time being.
According to Uday Raj Pandey, Nepal´s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, the Riyadh-based Pakistani embassy on Saturday wrote to the Saudi Kingdom´s foreign ministry to “put off the execution till the issue of blood money is finalized.”
“The Pakistani embassy must have got some kind of consent from the victim´s family for pardoning Yadav in exchange of blood money,” said Pandey. “The embassy would otherwise never have asked the Saudi kingdom to put off the execution. This means that Yadav is likely to get clemency.”
Nepal had recently offered 30,000 Saudi riyal -- approximately NRs 630,000 -- as blood money to the family of Mohammad Wasir, accidentally killed by Yadav during a scuffle in 2006. If Wasir´s family accepts blood money, Yadav will not be beheaded, said Pandey.
According to Sagar Prasad Phunyal, second secretary at the Nepali embassy in Riyadh, who has led the clemency campaign, Yadav is most likely to be released, if pardoned by Wasir´s family, since he has already spent over five years in a Saudi Arabian jail.
“A murder convict serves 2-6 years in jail, if pardoned by the victim´s family, in Saudi Arabia,” said Phunyal. “As he has been languishing in jail since 2006, Yadav is likely to be freed once Wasir´s family pardons him.”
A poor migrant worker from Machijhitakaiya village of Dhanusha district, Yadav has a wife, two sons, father and mother back home. Yadav had landed in jail on the charge of murder within months of reaching Jubail of Saudi Arabia. A court in Jubail sentenced him to death some two months back.
Published on: 1 January 2012 | Republica
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