A Kenyan mother, who has led a long and desperate campaign to save her son from execution in Saudi Arabia, was weak with relief when he was granted a temporary reprieve this week.
Stephen Munyakho, 50, was due to be executed on Wednesday for the murder of a Yemeni man in 2011. It could have been carried out by decapitation – beheading is the most common method in the kingdom – or by hanging, lethal injection or firing squad.
But his stay of execution is only temporary – and Dorothy Kweyu, 73, has told the BBC she has not yet been given any further details about her son’s case by Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
It means her anxiety has not eased. She is still trying to raise the “diyah” or blood money that under the Islamic legal system, known as Sharia, would secure a pardon from the victim’s family.
Saudi Arabia is an Islamic state and its judicial system is based on Sharia for both criminal and civil cases.
A public appeal has so far raised less than 5% of the required $1m (£790,000) needed, says Ms Kweyu, a respected journalist in Kenya.
Getting more time to raise the money may be what Kenyan government officials, negotiating on Ms Kweyu’s behalf, are hoping will be the way forward.
Announcing the execution’s delay on Monday, Korir Sing’Oei, a senior official in the foreign ministry, said negotiators were devising “strategies to bring this matter to a more acceptable conclusion, and thereby giving both families the closure they so urgently need and deserve”.
Mr Munyakho, known as Stevo to his friends and family, went to work in Saudi Arabia in his early 20s and 13 years ago was a warehouse manager at a Red Sea tourist resort.
According to Ms Kweyu, her son got into a dispute with a colleague, who she said stabbed Stevo with a letter opener.
Stevo retaliated by grabbing the letter opener and attacked his work mate, leading to his death.
“Initially, my son was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to five years in jail,” she told the BBC.
“We expected him to be inside for two-and-a-half years, in accordance with international norms – but it was not to be.”
But an appeal was heard in 2014 that changed the sentence.
“The court ordered that my son face capital punishment, which would have meant the death sentence,” Ms Kweyu said.
“Later on, however the family of the deceased was convinced by a Kenyan delegation in Saudi to take the diya offer of blood money.”
But the negotiations have proved long and difficult – and raising the money for Stevo, who has three children, has not been easy.
A court had set 15 May as the deadline for the blood money to be paid.
“One day I asked: ‘Is there a way we can exchange, so that they execute me instead of Steve my son?’ But I was rebuked and told to stop talking like that,” Ms Kweyu said.