3 Indians on UAE death row return home

Three Indian men sentenced to death in the United Arab Emirates for murder returned home on Tuesday after a businessman paid "blood money" to save their lives. The prisoners were freed in Sharjah after Dubai-based Indian businessman S.P. Singh Oberoi paid 1.8 million rupees ($40,000) as compensation to relatives of an Indian who was killed by the three men in October 2008. Kashmiri Lal, Trilochan Singh and Pradeep Kumar, sentenced to death in 2009, told reporters in the northern Indian city of Amritsar that they were innocent and had been forced to sign documents they could not read. "I paid the blood money to save these men," Oberoi told AFP at Amritsar airport where the men were welcomed home by their families. The men claimed they had been tortured while in custody.