RIYADH: Abdullah Fandi Al-Shammari, the kingdom's oldest death row inmate, was executed on Tuesday in Hail for a murder he committed 30 years ago.
The execution was briefly postpone after the executioner failed to show up.
A report by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said Shammari was 23 when he was arrested and jailed for beating to death Moojab bin Mohammed Al-Rashidi after a row.
Five years after the murder, the court set him free and ordered him to pay the victim’s family “blood money” after ruling Rashidi’s death was involuntary homicide.
But Rashidi’s family demanded a re-trial and Shammari was re-arrested, tried and sentenced to death in 1983.
He lingered on death row, however, because under the nation's law, the sons of the victim had to come of age and each one had to decide whether or not to accept the “blood money.”
Rashidi’s sons insisted the death sentence should be carried out.
Al-Shammari was the 10th to be executed in the kingdom so far this year.
