Riyadh: Saudi Arabia on Wednesday beheaded a Saudi
national convicted of murder and a Syrian accused of drug
trafficking in the conservative kingdom`s north, the interior
ministry announced.
Eid al-Anzi was sentenced to death for killing fellow
citizen Yazid al-Anzi during a dispute, the ministry said in a
statement carried by state news agency SPA.
A Syrian resident, Karim al-Raslan, was also beheaded by
the sword "for smuggling 230,000 pills of a forbidden drug
into the kingdom," SPA reported.
They were executed in the northern province of Al-Jawf,
bringing to 40 the number of people beheaded in Saudi Arabia
this year, according to an AFP tally based on official and
human rights group reports.
In June, London-based watchdog Amnesty International
called on Saudi Arabia to stop applying the death penalty,
saying there had been a significant rise in the number of
executions in the previous six weeks.
It said 15 people were executed in May alone.
In 2009, the number of executions reached 67, compared to
102 in 2008.
Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug
trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia`s
strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.
Bureau Report
