An Indian national convicted of killing the Saudi teenager he was paid to drive has escaped execution in the kingdom after Indians around the globe raised nearly $4 million to save him.
Machilakath Abdul Rahim, 44, had long held that he was innocent in the death of 15-year-old Anas al-Shahri, who had a rare health condition that left him paralysed from the neck down.
Rahim has been held in a Riyadh jail since 2006, spending one-third of his life caught up in an opaque system that rights groups say regularly mishandles cases involving foreigners.
Two attempts to appeal his case, including at Saudi Arabia's supreme court, had both hit dead ends.
But after years of mediation and a crowdfunding campaign, largely supported by natives of Rahim’s home state of Kerala, including a celebrity jeweller and a software start-up team, it appears that he will soon be free.
Fluke accident
Rahim arrived in Riyadh in November 2006 to work as a driver for the Al-Shahri family. His main responsibility was looking after Anas al-Shahri, who required machines to breathe and eat as a result of his condition.
One month into the job, the two were on a shopping trip when the teenager repeatedly asked Rahim to jump traffic lights, according to Najim Kochukalunk, a Riyadh-based reporter for Indian newspaper Madhyamam who has reported on the case for years.
While Rahim tried to appease Anas, he slightly touched his face which caused Anas’ breathing device to come off.
Rahim only realised what had happened when he found the boy's lifeless body on the seat and the breathing device on the floor.
A panicked Rahim called a distant relative, Mohammed Naseer, who was also working in Riyadh. Together, they concocted a story that robbers had attacked Rahim for money.
To make it plausible, Naseer tied Rahim to the seat and then called the police who soon realised they were lying and locked them up.
Expats to the rescue
Kochukalunk, the reporter in Riyadh, only met Rahim out of chance when he was visiting another inmate in the Malaz Prison in 2007.
“Another prisoner introduced himself as [Mohammed] Naseer and told me about a case in which he and his relative Rahim were involved,” the reporter told Middle East Eye.
“I couldn't get enough time to speak, so I wrote my phone number on paper and threw it at him.”
The slip of paper made it through two layers of security grills to Naseer, who later called Kochukalunk with Rahim and told him their story. His newspaper published a detailed account.
Despite the press it received, Rahim's case dragged on in Riyadh’s criminal court.
"The boy's mother testified in the court that she strongly believed Rahim killed him," Kochukalunk said. "In Saudi courts, the version of the victim's blood relatives carry more weight than other evidence."
In 2011, after more than three years imprisonment, the court handed Rahim the death penalty.
Ashraf Venghat, an activist from Kerala who is based in Riyadh and associated with the Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre, an expat charity and volunteer organisation, had been following Rahim's situation.
After Rahim received the death sentence, Venghat convened other expatriate organisations to form a legal team which also explored diplomatic intervention and mediation.
The newly formed committee hired a defence lawyer for Rahim who filed an appeal on his behalf. The appeal court upheld the criminal court's death penalty, but extended the period before Rahim was set to be executed.
Meanwhile, the legal team secured Naseer’s parole in 2016.
In Saudi Arabia, someone convicted of murder that was not premeditated can be released if the victim’s family agrees to forgive them, sometimes alongside a financial settlement ("blood money").
So Rahim’s legal team attempted to mediate with Anas’ family, but these efforts stalled when Anas’ father died.
For years, the committee attempted to find other family members to continue the mediation. Meanwhile, Rahim's lawyers appealed his case at the Supreme Court which upheld the death penalty.
Time was running out. In October 2022, mediation resumed with the family demanding nearly $4m.
Last October, in the presence of Indian embassy officials, a final settlement was reached, and it was agreed that the money would be handed over this past Tuesday.
Once paper work is finalised and the cash transfer confirmed, an Indian embassy official in Riyadh told MEE that Rahim is expected to be released in two or three months.
"We submitted mercy petitions to two kings and met multiple governors in Riyadh and Asir provinces and negotiated with many family members and lawyers,” Venghat told MEE.
“I'm happy that those efforts were not wasted.”
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