Kenya will not pay the Sh150 million ‘blood money’ required to save a Kenyan on death row in Saudi Arabia, Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi has said.
Appearing before the Senate plenary on Wednesday, Mr Mudavadi said the government lacks the necessary funds for the payment, but negotiations are ongoing after the Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs intervened to halt the execution.
“I wish to state that, a few weeks ago, I officially wrote to the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, intervening on behalf of Mr Munyakho. The execution was deferred and did not take place,” Mr. Mudavadi said.
“Despite this reprieve, the victim’s family still demands a compensation sum of Sh150 million. Mr. Munyakho’s family has raised about Sh10 million and continues to seek more funds,” he added.
The Kenyan, Stephen Munyakho, 50, is accused of killing a co-worker in 2011 and was scheduled for execution on May 15 this year.
Munyakho, known as Stevo to his friends and family, went to work in Saudi Arabia in his early 20s and was a warehouse manager at a Red Sea tourist resort 13 years ago.
According to his mother, Ms Dorothy Kweyu, the man got into a dispute with a colleague who allegedly stabbed him with a letter opener. In retaliation, Stevo grabbed the letter opener and fatally attacked his colleague.
Initially found guilty of manslaughter, Munyakho was sentenced to five years in prison, expected to serve two-and-a-half years in accordance with international norms. However, an appeal in 2014 led to a harsher sentence, changing it to capital punishment.
“The court ordered that my son face capital punishment, which would have meant the death sentence,” Ms. Kweyu said. “Later on, the family of the deceased was convinced by a Kenyan delegation in Saudi to accept the diya offer of blood money.”
Under Islamic law, diya is a payment made to the victim’s family and can result in a lighter sentence or even a pardon. This practice is followed in about 20 countries in the Middle East and Africa, including Sudan and northern Nigeria.
The Kenyan government, Mr. Mudavadi said, is now seeking to reduce the amount, considering that Mr. Munyakho’s family has only managed to raise Sh10 million and is struggling to raise the balance.
– By Ann Precious Kinyua
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