Human rights organization Amnesty International has shown it's utmost concern about a Saudi Arabian court verdict that a young man should be paralyzed as punishment for a crime he committed 10 years ago which resulted in the victim being confined to a wheelchair.

The apex human rights group said Ali al-Khawaher, 24, was reported to have spent 10 years in jail waiting to be paralyzed surgically unless his family pays one million Saudi riyals to the victim. The Saudi Gazette newspaper reported last week that Khawaher had stabbed a childhood friend in the spine during a dispute a decade ago, paralyzing him from the waist down.

Saudi Arabia applies Islamic sharia law, which allows eye-for-an-eye punishment for crimes but allows victims to pardon convicts in exchange for so-called blood money. Meanwhile, Ann Harrison, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director, expressed it's concern by saying that paralyzing someone as punishment for a crime would be torture and against human dignity.

(AW-Jyotishman)