24-year-old Saudi Man Gets ‘Paralysis’ Sentence For Crime Committed 10 Years Ago

Saudi Arabia has been meting out punishment to persons convicted of crimes according to the strict Sharia law used in the monarchy. Human Rights association have been decrying how human lives have been wasted in the kingdom in the name of carrying out justice.

Despite Saudi’s insistence on carrying out sentences in the past, Human rights organisation Amnesty International on Tuesday appealed to Saudi Arabia not to carry out a reported sentence of paralysis for a man in retribution for allegedly paralysing another man 10 years ago.

Ali Al Khawahir, 24, was reportedly sentenced to Qisas, or retribution, in the Eastern Province town of Al Ahsa and could be paralysed from waist down if he fails to pay compensation of one million riyals (about N42m), the rights watchdog said, citing Saudi media reports.

Khawahir was said to have stabbed his friend in the back in 2003, rendering him paralysed from the waist down. He was 14 at the time.

“Paralysing someone as punishment for a crime would be torture,” said Ann Harrison, Middle East and North Africa deputy director at Amnesty.

“It is time the authorities in Saudi Arabia start respecting their international legal obligations and remove these terrible punishments from the law,” she said in a statement.

According to Amnesty, a similar sentence of paralysis was imposed in 2010 but the group said it was unknown if it had been carried out.

The ultra-conservative kingdom imposes several forms of corporal punishment attributed to Islamic Sharia law, ranging from flogging, to amputation and beheading. A national, Abdul Rahman Al Qah’tani was reportedly beheaded on Monday for shooting dead fellow Saudi Saleh Moutared following a dispute.