MAKKAH, 2 March 2007 — The Reconciliation Committee in Makkah Province is an important charity organization established by Makkah Gov. Prince Abdul Majeed to save people on death row from execution by reaching an agreement with the families of victims.
Many people, who were staring death in the face, were saved at the last minute through the efforts of the Reconciliation Committee. Initially located in a modest office in Makkah’s Shaykh Abdul Aziz bin Baz Mosque, the Reconciliation Committee quickly expanded and is now housed in a massive five-floor building with a branch in Jeddah and 50 employees.
Prince Abdul Majeed has invested a lot of time and effort in making the committee successful. It is the efforts of the Makkah governor that has transformed the committee from a one-man show into a modern dynamic institute.
The executive president of the Reconciliation Committee, Naser Al-Zahrani, is a witness to the growth of the organization from its inception. Al-Zahrani knows a number of stories in which the committee has been instrumental in saving people from execution.
“The efforts of Prince Abdul Majeed can be easily noticed. He has put his complete support behind the committee and its members and has always encouraged us,” said Al-Zahrani in a special interview with Arab News. He added that the prince has never said no to a decision made by the Reconciliation Committee.
“The prince always says no matter how busy I am, the committee’s work is high priority for me,” said Al-Zahrani.
“I remember a case in which Prince Abdul Majeed got involved in saving a man from execution. It was the case of an Egyptian man who worked at a village near Taif. The Egyptian was in jail and facing execution after killing an Egyptian friend following a fight over some money. The Egyptian buried his friend’s body and tried to destroy evidence of the murder,” he said. The Egyptian was arrested and having confessed to the crime spent 12 years on death row. “He felt guilty at every moment that passed while he was in prison. When the execution date neared, he sent a letter asking for clemency from Prince Abdul Majeed,” said Al-Zahrani.
“The prince ordered us to help the man and review his case. After reading up on the case I traveled to Egypt and met with the victim’s family. I learned that the family of the murderer had tried many times to get a pardon for their son but the victim’s family had refused,” said Al-Zahrani, who added that the family was living in dire poverty.
“When they learned that I was a representative of Prince Abdul Majeed and that he had invited them to visit Makkah and Madinah for Umrah and Haj at his expense they became very happy,” he said. The visit was helpful and it resulted in the family forgiving the murderer, who was released and returned to Egypt to start afresh.
Another story that is still fresh in Al-Zahrani’s memory is one that involved a lot of time and effort in securing a pardon for a young Saudi man who was charged with murder. “The man was saved just a few hours before execution with the help of the Reconciliation Committee and the intervention of Prince Abdul Majeed,” he said. “The father of the victim had laid a condition that he would only forgive if the murderer paid a large amount of blood money. The problem was that the family of the killer was extremely poor and lived in a village around Makkah. They were in desperate need of money. I doubted whether they could collect the money on time. In spite of their condition they tried. We got involved and we wrote to many people asking for help but we still couldn’t collect the full amount,” he said.
Al-Zahrani said that as the execution date neared the family grew more desperate. He added, “We then learned that the execution would be taking place the next day and so we sent two men to the father’s house asking for a last minute plea. They spoke to him for a long time to the extent that one of them offered to kiss his feet just to get forgiveness. The father refused their plea, saying he didn’t want to see them.”
Al-Zahrani added, “They told him to take into consideration the murderer’s family and to have mercy on them because they wouldn’t have anyone left if he was executed. The man finally agreed to reduce the amount of blood money to a reasonable sum.”
However, there remained a problem as there was not enough time to collect the cash. The Reconciliation Committee did not give up and continued making telephone calls, they called many people asked for any amount people could spare to save the man. The responses were positive and the committee managed to collect a reasonable amount but there was much more left to collect.
With no time left, Al-Zahrani contacted Prince Abdul Majeed asking to delay the execution one more day in order to collect the amount. “The prince agreed to pay the rest of the money to complete the amount to save the young Saudi from execution. The committee delivered the good news that the man was saved,” said Al-Zahrani.
