NAIROBI, Kenya – March 26 – Ruling UDA Secretary General Hassan Omar has announced that Stephen Munyakho, the Kenyan who was on death row in Saudi Arabia, is set to return home after the Muslim World League intervened and paid a $1 million settlement.
He made the revelation at State House, Nairobi, where President William Ruto had hosted Muslims for Iftar and prayers on Tuesday evening.
“Last year, we brought the Secretary General of the Muslim World League to State House, and the President made a passionate request regarding a Kenyan who was facing death by beheading for murder. The Saudi Arabian ambassador to Kenya and Kenya’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia have confirmed that the request has been honored. The $1 million has been paid, and the Kenyan will return home safe,” Omar said.
Fifty-year-old Munyakho was due to be executed in May of last year for the murder of a Yemeni man in 2011.
The case came to national attention after his 73-year-old mother, Dorothy Kweyu, led a long and desperate campaign to save her son from execution in Saudi Arabia.
Munyakho went to work in Saudi Arabia in his early 20s and, 13 years ago, was employed as a warehouse manager at a Red Sea tourist resort.
According to Kweyu, her son got into a dispute with a colleague, who she said stabbed him with a letter opener. Munyakho retaliated by grabbing the letter opener and attacking his colleague, which led to the colleague’s death.
An appeal in 2014 resulted in a change to the sentence.
However, the family of the deceased was persuaded by a Kenyan delegation in Saudi Arabia to accept the diya offer, a form of blood money compensation.
Under Islamic law, diya compensates the victim or their family. It can be paid for various crimes, including murder, injury, and property damage.
Diya can lead to a reduction in the sentence or, in certain cases, a pardon. It is currently practiced in about 20 countries in the Middle East and Africa, including Sudan and northern Nigeria.
Source: capitalfm
