The Saudi Supreme Judicial Council has rejected Montrealer Mohamed Kohail's beheading sentence, a spokesman for Liberal MP Dan McTeague confirmed on Tuesday.
However, the spokesman for McTeague - Liberal consular affairs critic - added the charges against Kohail still stand, and will be re-addressed by a lower Saudi court.
Mohamed Kohail, 23, had been sentenced to death by decapitation for killing a 19-year-old Syrian man during a schoolyard fight in January 2007, in Jidda, Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, there was no word on Kohail's 17-year-old brother, Sultan, who was charged in the same incident and is still waiting to learn his fate in Saudi Arabia.
Sultan was originally tried and sentenced to 200 lashes in Saudi youth court, but is now facing trial in adult court, where he could face a death sentence.
Sultan was freed on bail last August when a Saudi judge overruled his murder conviction in youth court.
The Kohails maintain that evidence not permitted at their trials suggests that they were merely trying to escape from a mob and did not cause the injuries that led to the death.
The Kohail family lived in Dollard des Ormeaux, Que., a community on the island of Montreal, after emigrating to Canada in 2000.
They are Canadian citizens and returned to Saudi Arabia to visit relatives in late 2006.
