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A Kenyan mother, who has led a long and desperate campaign to save her son from execution in Saudi Arabia, was relieved when he was granted a temporary reprieve this week.
Stephen Munyakho, 50, was due to be executed on Wednesday for the murder of a Yemeni man in 2011. Saudi Arabia is an Islamic state and its judicial system is based on Sharia for both criminal and civil cases. A public appeal has so far raised less than 5% of the required $1m (£790,000) needed.
Mr Munyakho, known as Stevo to his friends and family, went to work in Saudi Arabia in his early 20s and 13 years ago was a warehouse manager at a Red Sea tourist resort.
According to Ms Kweyu, her son got into a dispute with a colleague, who she said stabbed Stevo with a letter opener. Stevo retaliated by grabbing the letter opener and attacked his work mate, leading to his death. “Initially, my son was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to five years in jail,” she said.
But an appeal was heard in 2014 that changed the sentence. “The court ordered that my son face capital punishment, which would have meant the death sentence,” Ms Kweyu said.
Later on, however, the family of the deceased was convinced by a Kenyan delegation in Saudi to take the diya offer of blood money. A court had set 15 May as the deadline for the blood money to be paid.
The Quran, the Muslim holy book, supports the paying of blood money - and this was further clarified by the Prophet Muhammad, who explained in his teachings that the price for murder or manslaughter should be 100 camels.
Modern interpretations mean this amount differs in different countries as diyah is now usually paid in cash.
“In Saudi Arabia one camel is on average 30,000 Saudi riyals [$8,000, £6,300] thus if anybody is going to pay for the life of someone, they have to pay at least $800,000,” Nigerian Islamic scholar Sheikh Husseini Zakaria said.
Ms Kweyu says she was first asked to pay about $2.6m, but successfully negotiated it down to $950,000.
Announcing the execution’s delay on Monday, Korir Sing'Oei, a senior official in the foreign ministry, said negotiators were devising “strategies to bring this matter to a more acceptable conclusion, and thereby giving both families the closure they so urgently need and deserve”.
Lewis Musonye
