New Delhi
5 April 2006
The Indian national, who was serving a prison term in Saudi Arabia
after a Shariat court there ordered that his eye be gouged out as punishment for
damaging an eye of a Saudi national, is free and is returning home.
Saudi Arabia's decision to release Abdul Latheef Naushad was conveyed by Saudi
Arabian Culture and Information Minister Iyad bin Amin Madani to Union Minister of State
for External Affairs E Ahamed, who is in Chicago.
Naushad, who hails from Keralite, was slapped with an eye-for-an-eye punishment for
damaging an eye of a Saudi national. On Wednesday, he was freed after a three-year
prison term and was being sent back to India.
Naushad had damaged the eye of the Saudi national, Naif Utheibi, during a scuffle at a
petrol pump where he was employed following which a Shariat court ruled that his eye be
gouged as punishment.
The Saudi national pardoned Naushad a few months back after the Keralite's wife and
mother had peititioned the Saudi King. King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz was the chief guest
at the Republic Day Parade on January 26.
In January, Mr Ahamed had told Naushad's wife Suhaila, who had travelled to New Delhi
in the hope of seeking an audience with the Saudi King, that the Saudi Ambassador
Saleh M Al Ghamdi to India had assured him (Ahamed) that Naushad's eye will not be
gouged out.
Soon after her meeting with Mr Ahamed, Suhaila also received a call from the manager of
the company, where her husband was working when the unsavoury incident occurred in
2003, saying that the victim had pardoned him.
The compromise was later endorsed by the Shariat court in Dammam where Naushad
had blinded Utheibi by one eye during a scuffle at a petrol pump over money payment
three years ago.
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