Bizarre, Criminal law, Politics, Religion, Society

Saudi Man Faces Paralysis Under Sharia “Eye For An Eye” Sentence

200px-Coat_of_arms_of_Saudi_Arabia.svgA Saudi court is prepared to carry out a sentence to have Ali Al-Khawahir surgically paralyzed in conformity with Sharia law’s “eye for an eye” traditions. Al-Khawahir was only 14 when he stabbed a friend and left him paralyzed. Now, his family has failed to pay the victim “blood money” to be released from jail. After ten years of negotiations over the blood money, Al-Khawahir faces total paralysis under the Kingdom’s medieval legal system.


The victim demanded SR2 million (more than half a million U.S. dollars) as the cost for forgiving his former friend and then reduced that to 1 million. However, Al-Khawahir’s family is too poor to pay the blood money and has asked for help from donors to avoid the surgery. Both the sentence and the concept of blood money is an affront to any cognizable system based on the rule of law. However, it all makes perfect sense in the twisted Sharia legal system.

This story follows the recent sentence where a man was first beheaded and then crucified for his crimes.

Source: Daily Mail

20 thoughts on “Saudi Man Faces Paralysis Under Sharia “Eye For An Eye” Sentence”

  2. I’m split on this one. I recall wishing we could just turn a child rapist/murderer over to the kids dad and uncles and leave it up to them.

    Maybe the punishment would seem more just if had been swift justice and the result of a court order not tied to negotiations with the victum over blood money.

    The system is certainly contrary to ours and I am no supported of Shyria law, but didn’t he willfully stab his “friend” resulting in his permanent paralysis?

  3. It is news such as this that should make really any one of us better appreciate the sustem we have here.

  4. What a disgusting judicial system. As I have stated before, this is the cruel and unusual punishment you get when you mix religion and government.

  8. Excerpt from Digital Journal article (link follows):

    One hospital would not carry out such surgery. They reportedly said they wouldn’t do it for ethical reasons and another hospital told the court in a letter that “inflicting such harm is not possible”.

    It is reported that one hospital said it was possible to perform this kind of surgery but it is unclear whether they would carry it out.

    The victim, Abdul-Aziz Al-Mutairi, is insistent that this punishment should be carried out. The punishment would be dismissed if he chose to accept blood money.

    A senior journalist from Saudi Arabia told the Daily Mail:

    “No hospital will cut this man’s spinal cord. Any doctor who did could find himself in court.”

    “This is part of an extremist tradition that has nothing to do with Islamic law which places a high value on mercy.”

    In 2006 Abdul Lateef Noushad faced losing an eye after a fight he was involved in cost another man his sight in one eye. He was eventually pardoned by Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz

    Read more: http://digitaljournal.com/article/296330#ixzz2PK2D7cPI

  9. A “doctor” is going to perform a surgery that cause paralysis in the patient!? What kind of doctor is that? The kind that allows his religious views over take his obligations as a doctor that is to do no harm. Or the kind that allows his government to order him to participate in torture in direct conflict to his medical oath? The person performing this surgery Is no doctor he or she (unlikely) is a butcher, just like the theocrats who ordered it.

  11. We need to look homeward…

    “Did the Saudis buy a president?”

    “How much money has flowed from the House of Saud to the Bush family and its friends and allies over the years? No one will ever know — but the number is at least $1.477 billion.”

    Friday, Mar 12, 2004 04:00 PM EST

    By Craig Unger

    http://www.salon.com/2004/03/12/unger_2/

    Excerpt:

    How much did it all come to? What was the number? Where did the money go? With the understanding that the sums were paid by both individuals and entities to both individuals and entities, for diverse purposes at different times, it is nonetheless possible to arrive at a reckoning that is undoubtedly incomplete but which by its very size suggests the degree and complexity of the House of Bush-House of Saud relationship.

    In charitable contributions alone, the Saudis gave at least $3.5 million to Bush charities — $1 million by Prince Bandar to the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, $1 million by King Fahd to Barbara Bush’s campaign against illiteracy, $500,000 by Prince Al Waleed to Philips Academy, Andover, to finance a newly created George Herbert Walker Bush Scholarship Fund, and a $1 million painting from Prince Bandar to George W. Bush’s White House.

    Then there were the corporate transactions. In 1987, a Swiss bank linked to BCCI and a Saudi investor bailed out Harken Energy, where George W. Bush was a director, with $25 million in financing. At the Carlyle Group, investors from the House of Saud and their allies put at least $80 million into Carlyle funds. While it was owned by Carlyle, BDM and its subsidiary Vinnell received at least $1.188 billion in contracts from the Saudis. Finally, Halliburton inked at least $180 million in deals with the Saudis in November 2000, just after Dick Cheney began collecting a lucrative severance package there.

    In all, at least $1.476 billion had made its way from the Saudis to the House of Bush and its allied companies and institutions. It could safely be said that never before in history had a presidential candidate — much less a presidential candidate and his father, a former president — been so closely tied financially and personally to the ruling family of another foreign power. Never before had a president’s personal fortunes and public policies been so deeply entwined with another nation.

    End of excerpt

  14. Oliver (may I call you Oliver?) maybe YOU are different but WE, as a society, are not. WE demanded blood retribution for 9/11 for example with no concern about from whom we extracted this retribution. YOU may not have been screaming for it on 9/12 (lard know I was not & protested our stupidity) but YOUR country – WE – most certainly did.

    If it helps you sleep at night to think you hold no responsibility for that pasta bless you, it does not help me at all

  15. In reality, we aren’t so different. There’s what one sees… and what goes on quietly, under the radar.

    As for ye olde “rule of law”? It isn’t faring so well in these United States but, on the surface, and for many, all appears to be well.

    And what Frankly said.

  16. Frankly, no WE don’t. There may be segments our our society that are cruel and vile but don’t include me in the WE.

    The House of Saud and its holy right to rule is unfortunately supported by the love of oil and some our Leaders twisted belief that these theocratic dictators are actually our friends. They are not. 9/11 was brought to us by planes full of Saudis yet we attacked Afganistan and Iraq.

    We really need to stop supporting the House of Saud and the rest of the theocracies in the ME including Mr. Morsi. It is time to bring our money and our troops home. The leaders of the ME are swimming in cash let them resolve their own disputes and help their own people.

  17. Anyone see the McCarthyite Fox News yakker on Fox News last night (one of the women with the faux kid voices) where she called Cesar Chavez a Communist. She did it several times. For you kids out there that did not live through it we had a period of time in America where it was worth your money to falsely accuse others of being Communists. Red Scare.
    Fox News: all the news that is fit to itShay.

    What is up with this new trend in television news casters with the female kid voices and kid names. One on the other night on CNN had the first name Toppy or Floppy.

  18. Saudi Arabia. Wealthy territory. But not a human nation state. Pirate Territory. Fly over and flush.

  19. Another example of religious insanity. I would ask why we maintain these religious nuts as allies but then we all know it’s the damn oil. One more reason we should get busy find alternatives to the vile, nasty oil that we depend on. What about hemp? Doesn’t that stuff produce lots of oil among other thingss/

  20. I donno, seems like any time there is a high profile case here in the civilized US segments of the public try to outdo each other in a race to think up the most violent and twisted revenge punishments they can come up with. We love the idea of this sort of thing, the outrage when they do it simply gives us the chance to be morally superior.

    That we do not, as a nation, actively engage in this sort of bestiality has a lot to do with the basic decency of our ancestors and their ability to overcome their baser instincts and almost nothing to do with those of us looking down our noses at the Saudis.

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