Another report from Mālik states that when the wounding and the killing take place in one and the same assault, the perpetrator is not first punished for the wound and then executed. If he wounded the victim unintentionally and then killed him deliberately, he must pay the blood money for the wound and is executed for the homicide. If he wounded him deliberately and then killed him by mistake, retaliation is taken for the wound, while the blood money for the accidental homicide is borne by his ʿāqila (male agnatic relatives).
If witnesses testify that a certain man killed the victim, and someone other than those witnesses confesses that he was the killer, the victim’s heirs may choose whichever of the two they wish to proceed against. One opinion says that both are to be executed—one on the strength of the testimony, the other on account of his confession—since it is possible that they both participated in the murder. A third view is that only the confessor is put to death.
When someone kills a man who had himself previously killed another person and against whom retaliation had already been established, two narrations are reported from Mālik. According to the version transmitted by the Egyptians, the second killer is handed over to the heirs of the first victim so that they may either exact retaliation or come to a settlement for blood money. If they choose a settlement, any claim that had existed between them and the heirs of their relative’s killer lapses, and the matter now lies solely between the heirs of their slain relative and the man who killed their murderer.
The Medinan transmission from Mālik, however, is that the heirs of the first victim have no claim at all against the killer of their murderer; he is treated as someone who died before retaliation could be carried out. If that murderer is killed accidentally, the blood money goes to the heirs of the first victim. Should the second killer be himself an heir of the victim, he has thereby taken his right, and neither he nor any co-heir may seek anything beyond that. If he kills the murderer after having pardoned him, retaliation is taken from him just as it would be from an unrelated person.
If one man murders several people and one of the heirs kills him, that heir incurs no further liability, nor does his property, and the remaining heirs have no entitlement to blood money or anything else.
Whoever pardons a wound inflicted upon him and later says, “If I die from this wound I have pardoned,” and then dies, his pardon is valid and the assailant is not pursued for anything further; this is the well-known position of Mālik. Another report from him, however, states that in such a case the killer is still liable for the full blood money and that the matter is referred to the authorities.