Beheading in Saudi Arabia

SAUDI ARABIA: MEMBER OF THE KINGDOM'S RULING FAMILY FACES DEATH PENALTY FOR MURDER

December 29, 2013: a newspaper reported a Saudi prince who murdered a fellow Saudi may be executed, in a rare example of a member of the kingdom's ruling family facing the death penalty.
The English-language Arab News did not name the prince or his victim, but said a senior member of the family and government, Crown Prince Salman, had "cleared the way for the possible execution of a prince convicted of murdering a Saudi citizen". In a message about the case to Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, Prince Salman said: "Sharia (Islamic law) shall be applied to all without exception", the daily reported. Prince Salman's message followed a statement from the victim's father that he was not ready to pardon the killer and he was not happy with the amount offered as blood money. The paper quoted Crown Prince Salman's message as saying: "There is no difference between big and small, rich and poor ... Nobody is allowed to interfere with the judiciary's decision. This is the tradition of this state. We are committed to following the Sharia."
TheNewsTribe website, headquartered in Bradford-UK, identified the prince as Saud Bin Abdulaziz Bin Nasir al Saud, 34, a grandson of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah. Prince Saud was jailed for life in Britain for killing his servant, Bandar Abdullah Abdulaziz, in a London hotel on 15 February 2010. Saud's trial at England's Old Bailey central criminal court in London heard that he beat and strangled Abdulaziz to death, fuelled by champagne and cocktails, after the pair returned from a Valentine's Day night out. The jury also heard the prince had ordered gay escorts and had frequently looked at websites for gay massage parlours and escort agencies. The prince denied being gay and his lawyers argued that he could face the death penalty in Saudi Arabia over the allegations of homosexuality.
However, Saud was returned to Saudi Arabia on 18 March 2013 to serve the rest of his life sentence in a prison of his homeland. “We have a prison transfer arrangement with Saudi Arabia which allows nationals of either country to serve their prison sentence in their home state... He was transferred in the same way that all prisoners are returned home and is the first prisoner to transfer under this arrangement,” a Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said. She added that, as part of the arrangement, he must serve the life sentence, with a minimum of twenty years. When asked what measures had been taken to ensure that the prince would not be persecuted for his homosexual acts, or, alternatively, receive preferential treatment as a result of his royal connections, she said that the administration of his sentence is now a matter for Saudi Arabia. (Sources: Reuters and thenewstribe.com, 30/12/2013; www.dailymail.co.uk, 21/03/2013)