A Bahraini appeals court has reduced, for the second time, the prison sentence of a Briton who stabbed to death an American, ordering him to serve five years in jail, the British embassy said Sunday.
The sentence will include the two-and-a-half years that 35-year-old Richard Mechan has already served, an embassy spokesman told AFP.
Mechan was originally sentenced to 15 years in prison but a first appeal in June 2001 on the grounds of self-defense saw that term cut to seven years.
"It has been a long process, and it is disappointing. Strictly speaking, he can appeal again," the spokesman said, but Mechan and his family had decided that Saturday's hearing was his final appeal.
Mechan, an information technology consultant for Saudi Aramco, was found guilty of stabbing to death Marshall Earl Emmons, a 31-year-old fiber optics engineer and jailed in July 2000.
The 15-year sentence was double the usual manslaughter term because Mechan had been under the influence of alcohol when he inflicted fatal stab wounds to Emmons' back and head in the January 2000 fight at a Manama residential compound.
Both men lived and worked in the eastern Saudi town of Al-Khobar, which is a short trip across a causeway from Bahrain, a favored drinking hole for Western expats and Saudis. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
