[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 1



SAUDI ARABIA----executions

3 Pakistanis beheaded in Saudi Arabia


3 Pakistanis were beheaded in Saudi Arabia on Thursday for drug
trafficking, the interior ministry said, taking the number of Pakistanis
executed for the offence to 5 in less than a week.

Rizqar Sadajan, Ruajan Sudajar and Nayk Mohammad Malik Mohammad were all
condemned to death for 'taking delivery of a large amount of hashish,' the
ministry said in a statement reported by the official SPA news agency.

Their execution in Riyadh came 6 days after two compatriots, Ghul Khan
Arghun Shah and Zarbadan Minajan, were beheaded by the sword in the Red
Sea port of Jeddah, the kingdom's commercial capital, for smuggling
heroin.

Thursday's executions took to 56 the number of death sentences announced
by Saudi Arabia and carried out this year.

A record 153 people were put to death in 2007 in the Gulf kingdom, which
applies a strict version of sharia, or Islamic law. This figure compared
with 37 beheaded in 2006.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry
the death penalty in the ultra-conservative country, where executions are
usually carried out in public.

(source: Agence France-Presse)