MAKKAH, 4 May 2004 — A peculiarity of the Arab world are fights between friends so violent they end with the death of one of them, as regular media reports testify.

The men, often little more than boys, who kill a friend in a murderous rage often have years on death row to regret their temper.

Abdul Sattar Barmawi, 18, is one of them. Two years ago he killed his friend Muhammad — for what he now says was a stupid reason.

“The boys of the neighborhood refused to let me play with them,” he told Al-Watan newspaper. “When I insisted, Muhammad hit me in front of the other boys. He was older than me. I hid near his house waiting for him to show up.

“I took a knife with me and took another friend with me to help me beat Muhammad up,” he said.

But things went too far. “When he showed up, I stabbed him with the knife and left him bleeding on the street. I went home, and police arrested me at my house later that day. I thought he was injured but I was shocked to learn that he had died.”

Abdul Sattar faces execution unless he can raise the SR700,000 in diya or blood money. Since he went to prison his father has died.

Othman Al-Sudani used to share a room with his cousin. “One day we had an argument and I took a stick and hit him on his head. He died later as a result of injuries,” he said.

He has been on death row for nine years now, hoping that his cousin’s family will accept the blood money.

“I don’t know how I managed to kill my cousin,” he says now. “I was ignorant at the time. I killed him and he was my cousin and the husband of my sister. He left behind three boys. I don’t know how to look them in the eye.”

Fawaz Al-Khusaifi killed his friend Hussein for love. Hussein, he says, stood between him and the woman he wanted to marry, so he decided to kill him.

He went to south Jeddah to buy a gun, but when he had it in his hands he did not have the courage to use it. So he bought drugs to steady his nerve.

It took four bullets to Hussein’s heart, and now Al-Khusaifi has nothing but regrets. “I lost everything,” he said. “I lost my job and the woman I loved.

Now I am behind bars counting the days. Everyday that passes, I wish I didn’t have to see another morning. Of course I wish I’d never committed the crime, but sometimes your eyes don’t open until it’s too late,” he adds.