A Kenyan mother who has led a long and desperate campaign to save her son from being executed in Saudi Arabia received some relief this week following the announcement that his sentence had been postponed.
Stephen Munyakho, 50, was due to be executed this week for the murder of a Yemeni man in 2011.
The execution could have been by beheading, the most common method of capital punishment in the kingdom, but also by hanging, by lethal injection or by firing squad.
Despite everything, the suspension of execution is only temporary. Dorothy Kweyu, Munyakho’s mother, who is 73, explained to the BBC that the Kenyan Foreign Ministry has not given her any further details about the case.
That means your anxiety hasn’t subsided. He is still trying to raise the “diyya,” or blood money, which under the Islamic legal system, known as sharia, It could help you obtain forgiveness from the victim’s family.
Saudi Arabia is an Islamic State and its judicial system is based on Sharia for both criminal and civil cases.
According to several journalists in Kenya, a public request for funds has only managed to raise 5% of what the law asks for: $1 million dollars.
And what the Kenyan government is looking for – which is interceding in the case of Munyakho, who is a citizen of the country – is to buy time to get the money.
After the announcement of the postponement of the execution on Monday, Korir Sing’Oei, a Kenyan official, said that negotiators “are looking for strategies to be able to resolve this matter in the most acceptable way possible, so that both families can close this story. something they deserve and urgently need.”
The history
Munyakho, who is called Stevo by his friends and family, moved to Saudi Arabia when he was 20 and for 13 years was the winery coordinator at a hotel located on the Red Sea.
According to Kweyu, his son had an argument with a colleague, who attacked him with a letter opener.
Stevo then returned the attack with the same letter opener, which ended up causing his colleague’s death.
“At first, my son was found responsible for manslaughter and sentenced to five years in prison,” the mother told the BBC.
“We expected him to return home after two and a half years, according to international laws. But it didn’t happen like that,” she said.
An appeal, made by the family in 2014, changed the sentence.
“The court then ordered that my son receive the death penalty, which meant he had to be executed,” he recalled.
“But soon after, the victim’s family accepted the offer of the Kenyan delegation in Saudi Arabia to receive diyya or blood money,” he adds.
But the negotiations have been long and difficult: Raising the money for Stevo, who has three children, has not been easy.
The court had established May 15 as the deadline for the money to be delivered.
“I asked that instead of executing my son they executed me. That we could make that exchange. But they told me to stop saying that,” says Kweyu.
Under Islamic law, diyya serves to compensate a victim or his or her family. It can pay for crimes such as murder or property damage.
Paying this diyah can lead to a reduced sentence and, in some cases, a pardon.
It is currently applied in about 20 countries in the Middle East and Africa, including Sudan and northern Nigeria.
The Quran, the holy book of Muslims, supports the payment of blood money. In fact, the Prophet Muhammad makes this clear in his teachings when he says that the price for murder or manslaughter should be 100 camels.
Modern interpretations make the sums differ from country to country and usually establish payment in cash.
“In Saudi Arabia a camel can cost about $8,000, so if someone is going to pay for someone’s life, they have to pay at least $800,000,” Islamic affairs expert Sheikh Husseini Zakaria tells the BBC.
Other factors, such as the victim’s gender and religious background, can determine the amount to be paid. Additionally, the victim’s family needs to agree.
Kewyu says that first they asked him for $2.6 million dollars. But later he managed to negotiate it until they agreed on $950,000.
It is not clear whether Stevo changed his religion while in prison. In a statement posted on the social network X and issued by Sing’Oei, the Kenyan delegate, it is said that Stephen Munyakho had now been renamed Abdulkareem.
The name change was news to family members, who were barely able to communicate with him through short calls from prison.
Life without Stevo
They have been difficult years for Stevo’s family. His youngest son, Evans Mwanze, 23, has not seen him in 20 years.
“There are many days when I hope that my dad will come home,” he tells the BBC.
“But there are other days when I get discouraged and wonder if the worst is over. I haven’t had time to meet my dad. He left when he was 3 years old. That was the last time I saw him,” he explains.
Kweyu says the shadow of the beheading is real. Last year, 172 executions were carried out in Saudi Arabia, according to figures released by the Saudi government itself.
“There was one day when my son called me and told me that one of his friends had been executed. It was a bit of a dark time,” he said.
Saudi authorities have not responded to the BBC’s request for more information on the case. For its part, the Kenyan government has been effusive in its public gratitude for the help they have received in this case.
“We will continue to rely on the warm and strong friendship we have with our Saudi partners,” said Sing’Oei, who promised that more negotiations would take place in the coming days.
“We will engage stakeholders in Nairobi and Riyadh, including representations of our religious leaders, to agree on the urgent next step.”
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