A Saudi court has ordered the removal of Indian worker Puthen Veetil Abdul Latheef Noushad’s eye as punishment for blinding a Saudi national in 2003.

“This literal eye-for-an-eye sentence is torture masquerading as justice,” said Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division. “King Abdullah must prevent the imposition of corporal punishment in violation of the country’s obligations under international law.”

Noushad, 32, had been working at a petrol pump in Dammam on the Saudi east coast since 1995. He had a fight with a Saudi customer over payment in April 2003 that put him in jail.

The Saudi man later lost his eyesight, but Noushad says it was not because of the injuries he inflicted, and he only ever acted in self-defence during the altercation.

Noushad filed a review petition in the Saudi Court of Appeals in 2004, which can ask a victim for a pardon, but the victim has refused to settle for monetary compensation.

The only option for the Noushad family now is to appeal to the Saudi king for royal clemency, which is granted during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Saudi Arabia acceded to the Convention against Torture in 1997. However, Noushads case is the third known instance over the past year in which a Saudi court has issued a sentence of eye-gouging, Human Rights Watch said. Saudi law allows for maiming, including the severing of limbs and severe flogging, as judicial punishments, according to HRW.

More than one million people from the southern state of Kerala work in the Gulf countries.