[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 10


SAUDI ARABIA----execution

Saudi carries out new beheading after UN appeal for halt


Saudi authorities beheaded a national for murder today, the interior ministry 
said, a day after a UN appeal for an immediate moratorium on their use of the 
death penalty. Hussein Daghriri was executed in the southwestern province of 
Jizan after being sentenced to death for fatally stabbing fellow tribesman 
Nayef Daghriri in a dispute, the ministry said in a statement carried by the 
official SPA news agency.

His beheading brought to 49 the number of executions carried out in the desert 
kingdom this year, according to an AFP tally.

It came after UN independent experts called on Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to 
implement an immediate moratorium.

"Despite several calls by human rights bodies, Saudi Arabia continues to 
execute individuals with appalling regularity and in flagrant disregard of 
international law standards," said Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on 
extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.

"The trials are by all accounts grossly unfair. Defendants are often not 
allowed a lawyer and death sentences were imposed following confessions 
obtained under torture."

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable 
by death under Saudi Arabia's strict version of Islamic sharia law.

(source: The Malaysian Insider)