ISLAMABAD – The Senate Standing Committee on Interior directed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday to call the ambassador of Saudi Arabia immediately and ask him to annul the decision of executing three Pakistanis as they had paid blood money (Diyat) to the heirs of the killed persons in Pakistan.
The Pakistani citizens had been awarded death sentence in a murder case in Saudi Arabia but they had not been released so far despite the payment of Rs 4 million as blood money in May 2010. Muhammad Aslam, Additional Secretary (Middle East) of the Foreign Office, told the committee that the Pakistani persons were languishing in a jail of Makkah as a copy of the payment of blood money, attested by a judicial magistrate, had not been provided to the Saudi government so far.
“Unless a copy, attested by a judicial magistrate, of the decision of a jirga after which the blood money was paid is provided to the Saudi government, the three Pakistanis could not be released as per Saudi law.” But the official had no answer when Standing Committee Chairman Senator Talha Mahmood asked him if the Foreign Office had informed the heirs of the three Pakistanis to furnish the said copy.
Talha admonished the additional secretary for not taking any action to save the lives and directed him to call the Saudi ambassador to the Foreign Office the same day to request stopping beheading of the three accused. He also directed the Foreign Office to provide the complete list of Pakistanis languishing in jails of Saudi Arabia.
Later addressing a press conference, Senator Talha said it had come into his knowledge that the three Pakistani had falsely been involved in the murder case, adding that they had a monetary dispute with a Saudi man whose brother Major Abdul Rehman Malki, an official in the Saudi spay agency, implicated them in the murder case.
When asked what the committee would do if the Saudi ambassador refused to visit the Foreign Office, he said they would go to Saudi Arabia and discuss the matter with the Saudi authorities, adding that in case they were hanged protest would be organised against the Saudi government. “We shall protest against the Saudi government and encircle its embassy regardless nature of relations between the two countries”, Senator the JUI-F senator warned.
He further said that the accused Pakistanis had been severely tortured in Saudi Arabia.
