MAKKAH, 14 May 2006 — A death row inmate attempted to bribe a mentally ill prisoner to take his place, the daily Al-Watan reported yesterday. Charged with murder and facing the executioner’s sword, the inmate allegedly said to his crazy colleague that he would pay him SR300,000 to assume his identity and confess to the murder, claiming that he wouldn’t be executed due to his mental state. The newspaper report didn’t say precisely how the mentally ill prisoner would have been able to successfully take on the other inmate’s charges. In any event, prison authorities caught wind of the ruse after the mentally ill inmate tried to confess to the other prisoner’s crime. The false confessor later confessed to the scam after investigators told him that, contrary to what he believed, he was in fact risking his neck, literally, for another person’s crime. Upon learning of the possibility of beheading, the prisoner withdrew his false confession.
