{"id":79028,"date":"2025-07-23T01:09:50","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T01:09:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=79028"},"modified":"2025-07-23T01:09:50","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T01:09:50","slug":"kenyan-man-on-death-row-in-saudi-arabia-freed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=79028","title":{"rendered":"Kenyan man on death row in Saudi Arabia freed"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Kenyan man on death row in Saudi Arabia for more than a decade has been released after a lengthy campaign to save him from execution, a Kenyan foreign affairs ministry official has said.<\/p>\n

Stephen Abdukareem Munyakho was released under a \u201cjudicial decree\u201d, Korir Sing\u2019oei posted on X, without giving further details.<\/p>\n

His mother, veteran journalist Dorothy Kweyu, told local media that she \u201crolled on the floor\u201d when she heard of his release.<\/p>\n

Munyakho was working in Saudi Arabia when he was convicted of murdering a Yemeni colleague in 2011. The crime carries the death penalty, but after protracted negotiations, the victim\u2019s family agreed to accept blood money.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia follows Islamic law, which states that the death sentence can be commuted if the deceased\u2019s family accepts blood money, known as dihya, as compensation.<\/p>\n

Kenyan media reported that the family had received $1m (\u00a3742,000) earlier this year in a payment made by the government and a charity, the Muslim World League.<\/p>\n

Munyakho\u2019s execution was postponed multiple times, following interventions by Kenyan officials.<\/p>\n

Ms Kweyu waged\u00a0a long and desperate campaign<\/a>\u00a0to save her son.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis satisfaction is going to be with me for a while,\u201d the Star newspaper quoted her as saying after her son\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis time, it is true. The ambassador [in Saudi Arabia] has confirmed it,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Munyakho went to work in Saudi Arabia in his early 20s and 14 years ago was a warehouse manager at a Red Sea tourist resort.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the BBC last year, Ms Kweyu said her son got into a dispute with a Yemeni colleague.<\/p>\n

According to her, the workmate stabbed Munyakho with a letter opener, prompting him to retaliate by grabbing the same opener and attacking him. It resulted in the colleague\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

He was initially sentenced to five years for manslaughter in 2011, but an appeal changed that to a murder conviction in 2014 \u2013 carrying the death sentence.<\/p>\n

Sing\u2019oei, Kenya\u2019s Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary, said that Munyakho had performed the minor Muslim pilgrimage in Mecca following his release.<\/p>\n

It is unclear when he would return home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"KenyanA Kenyan man on death row in Saudi Arabia for more than a decade has been released after a lengthy campaign to save him from execution, a Kenyan foreign affairs ministry official has said.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}