Saudi man beheaded for beating wife to death

by Sanjay Jha | October 22, 2008 at 04:13 am

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2 convicted murderers were beheaded by the sword on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia. One of the accused Omar Bin Abid Wakdani beated his wife to death following a family argument. 2nd execution was carried out in Qurait, in the northeast of the kingdom, where Fawzi bin Abd al-Badi was beheaded for shooting dead a fellow Saudi.

The beheadings bring to 82 the number of executions announced by Saudi Arabia this year.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry the death penalty in the oil-rich Gulf state, where executions are usually carried out in public.

A Saudi man was beheaded with a sword on Wednesday in the southern province of Jazan after being convicted of beating his wife to death, the country’s interior ministry said. Moussa bin Qassem Dahesh was found guilty killing of his Yemeni wife, Aysah bint Ahmed Awaji by hitting her repeatedly with a cane on her head and other parts of her body, the ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.

The beheading brings to 83 the number of executions announced by Saudi Arabia this year.

In a report earlier this month, human rights group Amnesty International said the Saudi government "continues to execute people at an average of more than two a week."

Almost half of them are migrant labourers from poor and developing countries, the London-based watchdog said.

Last year, a record 153 people were executed in the conservative Muslim kingdom, which applies a strict version of sharia, or Islamic law. This figure compared with 37 in 2006 and the previous record of 113 in 2000.