Tit-for-tat: Saudi court orders man to be paralysed

Amnesty International has condemned a reported Saudi Arabian court ruling that a young man should be paralysed as punishment for a crime he committed 10 years ago which resulted in the victim being confined to a wheelchair. The London-based human rights group said Ali al-Khawaher, 24, was reported to have spent 10 years in jail waiting to be paralysed surgically unless his family pays one million Saudi riyals ($270,000) to the victim.

The Saudi Gazette newspaper reported last week that Khawaher had stabbed a childhood friend in the spine during a dispute a decade ago, paralysing him from the waist down. Saudi Arabia applies Islamic sharia law, which allows eye-for-an-eye punishment for crimes but allows victims to pardon convicts in exchange for so-called blood money.

"Paralysing someone as punishment for a crime would be torture," Ann Harrison, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa deputy director, said. "That such a punishment might be implemented is utterly shocking, even in a context where flogging is frequently imposed as a punishment for some offences, as happens in Saudi Arabia," she added. A government-approved Saudi human rights group did not respond to requests for comment.

Source: Times of India (05/04/2013): http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Tit-for-tat-Saudi-court-orders-man-to-be-paralysed/articleshow/19392473.cms