Kerala youths Fazalu Rahman of Kannur, Mohammad Musthafa of Mannarkkad, Zakeer Hussain of Thiruvananthapuram and Mohammed Musthafa of Perunthalmanna for killing 24-year-old Muhammed Ashraf of Mangalore during an altercation in early 2008 in Riyadh's Aziziyah district.

The Congress leader's office said in a statement that he intervened after family members of the four Malayalis approached him. He supposedly took up the matter with the concerned authorities and also got the victim's relatives to agree to receive blood money.

He then asked some of the community forums in the Gulf to arrange the blood money after Abduk Khader, father of the deceased, agreed to pardon his son's killers.

CK Menon of Doha-based Behzad group, a recipient of India's third highest civilian honor Padma Shri, contributed the blood money. Abdul Kader, who is living in Mangalore city in Karnataka state, received SR680,000 in blood money through Menon's friend in Alkhobar, Mohammed bin Hamim.

The expatriates, who were sentenced six months after committing the crime, still have to spend five more years in jail for breaching public rights.