JEDDAH, 22 November 2003 — Mediation efforts by the governor of the Eastern Province saved a doctor from execution on Thursday, Al-Madinah reported yesterday. Dr. Ali Al-Aqeel, who accidentally killed a colleague at the College of Technology in Dammam, agreed to pay SR10 million in blood money to Al-Bouriqa family in Al-Ahsa.
Al-Aqeel fatally wounded his colleague when he struck him with a piece of office equipment after an argument, the paper said. Ali immediately took the man to hospital where the victim died following surgery.
Dr. Al-Aqeel spent six years in a Dammam jail. His family tried but failed to win a pardon from the dead man’s family.
But Eastern Province Governor Prince Muhammad ibn Fahd intervened and persuaded the father of the dead to drop their demand that Dr. Aqeel be executed.
Last-minute pardons of this kind are relatively common in Saudi Arabia, and mediation by officials from the executioner himself up is often involved.
