Man on Saudi death row wins short reprieve

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Manila - The Philippines said on Tuesday that a Filipino who was due to be executed in Saudi Arabia this week had been given an extra three months to raise $1 million in “blood money” that would save his life.

Saudi King Abdullah granted the reprieve to labourer Joselito Zapanta, who had been sentenced to death by beheading for the 2009 murder of his Sudanese landlord, following an appeal by Philippine President Benigno Aquino.

Saudi authorities announced the extension of time on the final day that Zapanta had been given to pay the wife of his victim four million riyals ($1.06 million) in exchange for his life, Vice-President Jejomar Binay said.

Binay, who also acts as a special envoy for the millions of Filipinos working overseas, thanked King Abdullah for his “humanitarian gesture”.

“His benevolence has given our countryman a three-month lease on life, and his family additional time to raise the blood money,” Binay said.

Under the Saudi system, a murderer can be saved from execution if he or she pays money demanded by the victim's family.

The victim's wife in this case is demanding the equivalent of 43 million pesos, but Zapanta's family had only raised about 10 million pesos, Binay's office said.

Last month a Filipino sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for killing a man he said tried to sexually abuse him walked free after a similar amount of blood money was paid to the victim's family.

In that case, the Filipino man's family raised the equivalent of $245 000, while the Saudi government paid another $615 000.

Roughly nine million Filipinos work around the world, often in menial jobs yet earning much more than they could in their poverty-stricken homeland. - AFP