A case in Saudi Arabia where a young man is facing medically induced paralysis for stabbing and paralysing another has caused international outrage.
It has even drawn condemnation from the Saudi royal establishment, prompting Princess Basma bint Saud of Saudi Arabia to condemn the judgment on the BBC on Thursday. This is the second time such a punishment has been proposed in the country.
Two years ago, the Saudi courts approached hospitals inquiring about the possibility of inducing spinal paralysis in a similar case.
The macabre nature of these sentences is highly unusual even for Saudi Arabia, reflecting a particularly technical, obsessively literalist and extrapolative interpretation of Islamic law. But behind these cases lies a more problematic tenet: that of diyya, blood money paid in compensation to the family of the victim, and which the young man in question failed to raise. [Guardian Cif] Read more
