A Saudi man escaped a sentence of paralysis for stabbing and paralyzing his friend when they were kids, AFP reports.
The family of Ali Al-Khawahir, 24, will instead pay the family of Mohammed al-Hazim, 26, one million riyals ($270,000) in compensation, Kuwait's Al-Watan daily reported.
In 2003 a 14-year-old Ali Al-Khawahir stabbed his friend in the backbone. The victim has been "completely paralyzed ever since and has not been able to lead a normal life and has been deprived of being a father," according to Ali's mother.
Saudi authorities denied issuing the paralysis punishment. Amnesty International says a Saudi court passed another sentence of paralysis in 2010, but it's unclear if or how it was carried out.
Khawahir, who has spent 10 years in jail, will now be released after al-Hazim's family entered a waiver that avoided the eye-for-an-eye punishment.
The sentence, called Qisas or retribution, draws from the code of Hammurabi, a legendary Mesopotamian king who ruled the Babylonian Empire from 1792-1750 B.C.E.
"An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" was one of 282 laws inscribed on a stone pillar.
AFP notes that Saudi courts impose several forms of corporal punishment attributed to Islamic sharia law, ranging from flogging to amputation and beheading.
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