Kozhikode native Abdul Rahim’s release from a Saudi jail, where he has been imprisoned for the last 18 years on charges of murder of a teenage boy, seems nearer with the transfer of the compensation money demanded by the victim’s family to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
The Abdul Rahim Legal Assistance Committee, which had raised 15 million Saudi riyals (roughly ₹34 crore) through what could be the biggest such crowd-funding in the history of Kerala, transferred the funds on May 23 to an account set up by the MEA.
The committee had on April 15 informed the Saudi court through its representatives that the compensation money, or diya, had been arranged. The court formally informed the family of the deceased and they conveyed their willingness to accept the money and grant pardon.
“The fund will now be deposited in the Saudi court, from where it will be forwarded to the family of the deceased,” K.K. Alikkutty, convenor of the committee, told The Hindu.
Mr. Rahim, an autorickshaw driver from Feroke, was 26-years-old when he reached Saudi Arabia in search of a better livelihood and started working for a Saudi citizen as his driver and caretaker of his partially paralysed son. The boy breathed and ate through a special device attached to his neck.
In Mr. Rahim’s version of the fatal incident, he accidentally dislocated the instrument while trying to control the boy who was making a fuss demanding him to apparently violate a red signal on the road. The boy soon fainted and died.
