Filipino, Yemeni beheaded for Saudi murders

33 other OFWs on death row

By Cynthia Balana
INQUIRER.net Agence France-Presse Inquirer
Posted date: June 13, 2007

RIYADH -- A Filipino and a Yemeni were beheaded by the sword in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for separate murders, the interior ministry said, adding to a number of executions already more than double that of 2006.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed that Filipino Reynaldo Cortez, 41, was executed in Riyadh for stabbing to death a Pakistani driver.

In an interview, Foreign Undersecretary for Migrant Affairs Esteban Conejos said Philippine Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Antonio Villamor called up to confirm the execution of at 2 p.m. Manila time.

Citing DFA statistics, the Filipino migrant advocacy group Migrante said in a statement that 33 other overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), two of them women, are still on death row.

Yemeni Yassin bin Saleh Abdu Ahmed was decapitated in the southern Jizan region after using a pickaxe to kill and then rob a Saudi man, a statement from the Saudi ministry carried by SPA state news agency said.

The beheadings bring to 94 the number of executions announced by the Saudi government so far this year.

In 2006 at least 37 people were executed, while 83 were put to death in 2005 and 35 the year before, according to Agence France-Presse tallies based on official statements.

Executions are usually carried out in public in Saudi Arabia, which applies a strict form of sharia, or Islamic law. Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry the death penalty.

The death sentence on Cortez, who left behind a wife and six children in Guagua, Pampanga, was carried out after the victim’s family rejected with finality the offer of 100,000 Saudi rials as blood money and insisted his beheading.

"In court hearings, Cortez said he was trying to defend himself from possible sexual assault and that was what the Philippine embassy insisted during the negotiations for blood money," Conejos said.

Cortez, a welder at the Al-Allah Car Workshop in Riyadh’s Sinaya District, said the Pakistani had tried to rape him. Earlier reports said Saudi Arabian police shot Cortez twice in the left foot even after he surrendered.

In December 2003, Judge Mohammad Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh and two other judges of the Riyadh Grand Court found Cortez guilty of the charge of murder and frustrated murder, and sentenced him to 15 years imprisonment and 1,000 lashes.

Cortez' lawyers immediately filed an appeal in the Riyadh Appellate Court. On November 27, 2004, the court, on hearing his claim that he had killed the taxi driver in an act of self-defense, reduced his jail sentence to 10 years.

But a Riyadh high court sentenced Cortez to death on May 30, 2005.

Conejos said the embassy negotiated with the family of the victim twice--first in October 2005 and the other in January 2006. Both efforts failed.

He said that the embassy then turned to the victim's brother who is also working in Riyadh for consideration, but the brother ignored the offer.

Conejos said the embassy then hired a Pakistani professional negotiator to convince the family of the victims but to no avail.

Migrante noted that the beheading of Cortez happened during Migrants Month, declared by the Philippine government.

The statement said that, “weeks before his death, Rey sent Migrante International chairperson Connie Bragas-Regalado text messages saying that unless the Philippine government acted on his case, he will surely be executed.”

“Kapag di talaga inasikaso ng ating gobyerno ang kaso ko, talagang mapuputulan ako ng ulo. Kasi ayaw talaga ako patawarin ng pamily [If the Philippine government doesn’t take action regarding my case, I will really be beheaded because the family does not want to forgive me],” the text message Cortez sent to Regalado on May 10 said.

Migrante said Cortez was the fifth OFW executed abroad under the Arroyo administration.

In March 2005, Sergio Aldana, Antonio Alvesa, Wilfredo Bautista and Miguel Fernandez were also beheaded in Saudi Arabia.

Migrante International said other OFWs still on death row in Saudi Arabia include Rodelio Lanuza, Idan Tejano, Marjana Andal Sakilan. Marilou Ranario is on death row in Kuwait.

Conejos said he had instructed the embassy to work for the return of Cortez' remains to the Philippines.