And so it came to pass. The blood money mentioned here has now been handed over to the family of the rapist murder victim:
The Indonesian government has paid SR2 million in blood money to save the life of an Indonesian maid on death row in Riyadh for killing her Yemeni employer in 2009.
Indonesia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry sent the money to its embassy in Riyadh to secure the release of Darsem binti Dawud.
“The compensation was paid by two officers of the Indonesian Embassy to a panel at the Riyadh governorate dealing with the case,” said Hendrar Pramutyo, an official of the embassy’s Citizen Protection Wing, on Saturday. “The payment of blood money is an expression of the Indonesian government’s commitment to protect its overseas workers at any cost.”
He said the Riyadh court had already decided to release the maid, who is currently languishing in the Malaz Jail. “I am hopeful that the maid will be released shortly,” said the embassy official.
Dawud is a migrant worker hailing from the city of Subang in Indonesia’s West Java province. She was convicted by a Riyadh court in May 2009. The court sentenced her to death by beheading.
The maid has always maintained her employer tried to rape her and she was acting in self-defense, according to reports published in a section of the Indonesian media Saturday.
In January the employer's family agreed to forgive Dawud if they were paid the compensation by July this year….
Indonesia has since announced a ban on the recruitment of workers to Saudi Arabia. The ban will be effective from Aug. 1 this year.
There are 28 Indonesian maids currently on death row in Saudi Arabia, as well as 1,000 languishing in different jails across the Kingdom for petty crimes. More than 1.2 million Indonesian workers live and work in the Kingdom.
Mick Hartley 
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