Blood Money

16 March, 2011

Hope you are aware of the shoot out incident in Pakistan where an American Raymond Allen Davis was arrested by the Pakistani authorities. There was immense pressure from America for his release. I was watching today’s news on TV and there was a mention about ‘blood money’ being paid for his release.

A news item of Associated Press: 16th march 2011.

LAHORE, Pakistan — A CIA contractor who shot and killed two Pakistani men was freed from prison on Wednesday after the United States paid $2.34 million in "blood money" to the victims' families, Pakistani officials said, defusing a dispute that had strained ties between Washington and Islamabad.

In what appeared to be carefully choreographed end to the diplomatic crisis, the U.S. Embassy said the Justice Department had opened an investigation into the killings on Jan. 27 by Raymond Allen Davis. It thanked the families for "their generosity" in pardoning Davis, but did not mention any money changing hands.

Davis left the country immediately on a U.S. flight, Pakistani and American officials said. …(only an excerpt)

What is ‘blood money’?

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/blood+money

blood money

noun.

1. Money paid by a killer as compensation to the next of kin of a murder victim.

2. Money gained at the cost of another's life or livelihood.

blood money

1. compensation paid to the relatives of a murdered person

2. money paid to a hired murderer

3. a reward for information about a criminal, especially a murderer

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blood%20money

1. money obtained at the cost of another's life

2. money paid (as by a killer or the killer's clan) to the family of a person who has been killed

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/blood-money

This is the American English definition of blood money.

1. money paid for someone to be murdered

2. money paid to the family of someone who has been murdered

3. money paid to someone to allow a person close to them to be used or harmed in some way

Wikipedia

Blood money is money or some sort of compensation paid by an offender (usually a murderer) or his family group to the family or kin group of the victim.

There are two English movies Blood Money released in 1933 and another one in the same name in 1997.

I am somehow not satisfied with the rationale of this sort of payment. On one side when we flaunt around saying that we have the Right to Live how is it that we have such archaic methods of compensating someones murder for money?

P.Uday Shankar

Coimbatore.