Thursday, 11 September 2014

Mike's Saudi (10) Saudi Justice


It seems to me that much is misunderstood about the punishment as dictated by the Koran it is widely believed that if a man steals his hand will be severed and this is so. But I believe the thief is given three chances and the man must admit his crime; if he has stolen food because he is hungry then it is the communities fault for not supporting him. I once saw a criminal on the plane I was travelling on, chained to his guard, I heard he was to be executed for what crime I don’t know but all he did was to recite the Koran. He showed no fear whatsoever and looked quite calm.

We used to live in town where our villa was surrounded by the usual purdah but in this case the top three feet had fancy block work. My wife saw a couple of eyes looking through the block work at her on several occasions. I took this up with Abu Garda (see blog 5) and he said “Tell your wife to get a stick and next time she sees him let her poke his eyes out. Nothing will happen to her” Naturally she didn’t but it did show their approach to this sort of thing, however I’m not too sure how they would react to an expatriate wife blinding somebody.

I was told of a case where a man working on the roof of a building fell off onto a man below killing him. The dead man’s wife could choose between financial compensation or demand the death of the man who had unfortunately killed her husband. The case came before the Saudi judge and as was her right the woman chose that the death of her husband’s killer despite the judges advice she insisted. The judge ruled he could not deny the woman her right but he could decide the manner in which it should be accomplished. “You will throw yourself off the same building on to your husband killer so that he might die in the same manner as your late husband” the woman settled for compensation. I have a great respect for Islamic justice; it was nice to live in a country where there was virtually no crime.

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