[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 17



Saudi Arabia displays bodies of 2 Ethiopians beheaded


Saudi authorities yesterday beheaded 2 Ethiopians convicted of killing a
Saudi national in an armed robbery and displayed their bodies in public
after the execution, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The
statement, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, said Ali Mohammed
Ali and Adel Adam Aman were found guilty of fatally shooting and robbing
Khaled bin Karim bin Bakhash, the owner of a private telephone services
center.

A court ordered their bodies be displayed in a public place after the
execution as a further deterrent "because of the hideousness nature of the
crime." The statement said they were executed in Jiddah but did not say
specifically where their bodies were displayed. The process of displaying
the body of an executed person is usually carried out by the executioners
who fix the chopped head to the body and then either hang it from a pole
or from a mosque window or balcony for about 2 hours during the noon
prayer.

The beheaded bodies are only displayed when there is a specific court
order in cases considered particularly brutal, such as committing murder
during an armed robbery. In February, the bodies of four Sri Lankans were
strung up and displayed in a Saudi public square after they were beheaded
for armed robbery, drawing criticism from Human Rights Watch, which said
the kingdom violated international law because they men did not have
lawyers.

Separately, the Interior Ministry said in another statement that a Saudi
national, Jalal bin Ahmed al-Marhoun, was executed yesterday in the
northern city of Al-Jawf, after being convicted of smuggling hashish into
the country. Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam under
which people convicted of murder, drug trafficking, rape and armed robbery
can be executed. Beheadings are carried out with a sword in a public
square. Yesterday's executions brought to 70 the number of people,
including 2 women, beheaded in the kingdom this year. The kingdom beheaded
38 people last year and 83 people in 2005.

Also, Saudi Arabia beheaded a Saudi yesterday as it kept up a relentless
pace of executions that has seen 77 convicts put to the sword already this
year. The Saudi authorities have now carried out more than twice as many
executions this year as in the whole of 2006 with more than 6 months still
to go. Last year, 37 people were executed in the conservative Gulf
kingdom, while 83 were put to death in 2005 and 35 the year before,
according to AFP tallies based on official statements. The spate of
executions has sparked mounting concern in Canada, which has 2 nationals
facing possible death sentences for a murder they insist they did not
commit.

Mohamed Kohail, 22, of Palestinian origin, was arrested in January and
accused of killing a Syrian youth in a vicious schoolyard brawl in Jeddah,
Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper reported on Tuesday. His 16-year-old
brother Sultan is also being held in relation to the death. In an
interview by mobile phone from his prison cell, Kohail told the newspaper
he had been pushed, slapped and abused, and forced into signing a false
confession. Local police told him to admit to hitting the Syrian schoolboy
if he wished to avoid a lengthy prison term, unaware the boy had died, he
said, but after signing the document, he was charged with the boy's
murder.

Until last year, Kohail had lived with his family in a Montreal suburb,
but returned to Saudi Arabia, where he was born, when his sister became
ill, he said. Rodney Moore, a spokesman for Canada's foreign affairs
department, acknowledged that Canadian officials are "aware of the arrest
of two Canadian citizens in Saudi Arabia." Consular officials have met
with Saudi officials, Kohail and his family, Moore said, but refused to
offer details because of Canadian privacy laws. Executions are usually
carried out in public in Saudi Arabia, which applies a strict form of
sharia, or Islamic law. Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug
trafficking can all carry the death penalty.

(source: Kuwait Times)