Making Millions from Murder

Riyadh, 24 Nov. (AKI) – Pardoning killers has become big business in Saudi Arabia, the Al-Watan newspaper reports. Families are making millions in exchange for ‘forgiving’ the murderers of their relatives, with more than 40 million Saudi riyals (more than 10 million dollars) being paid out to pardon eight people last year alone. Now, the Saudi newspaper says, the Majlis-e-Shoura consultative council is being urged to intervene and introduce new laws to regulate the payment of blood money and stop the practice from becoming a form of extortion which bankrupts low and middle income families.

“Profit is now the motive of forgiveness,” the newspaper writes. “It is called blood money, and the families of some victims are cashing in, demanding sums beyond the reach of all but the very rich.”

One tribal leader, Hamed al-Wadie, told Al-Watan that the problem stemmed from a lack of awareness and a weakness in faith. Paying out millions to pardon a killer is too much, he said, saying rules and regulations were needed to govern such cases.

Here’s a strange piece from the Italian wire service Adnkronosinternational, about how blood money, the restitution paid by killers in order to avoid capital punishment, has become “big business” for some.

In theory, the granting of clemency by the family of a murder victim is intended to be an act of mercy, with a heavenly reward. The Shari’a law is generally lex talionis, an eye-for-an-eye proposition. But it provides an opportunity to spare the life of a murderer, placing it in the hands of the victim’s family. In addition to the moral good of waiving the right to have a killer put to death, the practice has traditionally involved the payment of “blood money,” an arbitrarily set, but usually modest sum.

This practice seems to have changed recently, however, as more and more families are seeking large sums, at least in a Saudi context. These sums are not amazing by many Americans’ standards, but neither are they settled by a court or a jury; only the family of the victim decides what the victim’s life was worth.

This is clearly another area where transparency in law would prove socially beneficial. The intent of the law is not to enrich the victims, but to compensate them. It also stresses the “enrichment” will come in the next world.