By Staff

A Saudi court ordered a well-known local scholar to pay diya (blood

money) after he was convicted of torturing his five-year old daughter to death. His wife quickly reacted by saying she would appeal to demand her husband’s death.

Newspapers in the Gulf Kingdom said the unnamed scholar is still in jail until he pays diya to his wife over the death of his daughter.

The woman said she had not appointed a lawyer during the trial to demand execution of her husband on the grounds she is “ignorant in the law.”

“The body of my daughter has been in the morgue for nearly four months.. I have just received a court permit to bury her,” she said.

In a report in late 2012, the Saudi Arabic language daily Alyoum said the scholar often appears on a local satellite TV channel to deliver religious lectures.

The paper said his daughter Lama died in hospital after spending several weeks suffering from broken arms, skull fracture and head bruises.

It quoted the girl’s mother as saying her daughter had been systematically tortured by her father and his new wife before she was admitted to hospital in a serious case.

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