King Abdullah personally intervenes in blood feuds

King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia broke his official timetable and turned his palace into a platform to reconcile four feuding families locked in a dispute over murders, the official media reported on Saturday.

The king received the four families at his palace in the western Red Sea port of Jeddah on Friday night, his usual weekly retreat from his royal duties in the capital Riyadh, and asked them to forgive each other.

“Pardon and forgiveness are the main traits of Muslims. May God the Almighty have mercy on your dead,” he told the families that gathered at his palace.

Newspapers said the first two Saudi feuding families were that of the victim Hamoud Al Sami and the family of Mohammed bin Assaf Al Otaibi, the killer. The two other families were that of the victim Ahmed Ibrahim Mohammed, an Ethiopian, and the family of Mohammed Al Mushaikhi, the Saudi murderer.

“Both families of the victims announced before the monarch that they have pardoned and forgiven the killers and expressed gratitude for the monarch for his efforts to reconcile them and achieve forgiveness among all people,” the official Saudi press agency reported.

Under Islamic law, a convicted killer escapes execution if pardoned by the relatives of the victim. The murderer could also be freed if the victim’s family accepts diya (blood money).

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