Illustration by Amarjit Sidhu

SAUDI ARABIA: THREE MEN BEHEADED FOR MURDER AND DRUG TRAFFICKING

August 8, 2014: Saudi Arabia beheaded three men for murder and drug trafficking.
A Yemen national was beheaded for sexually assaulting and murdering two Asian housemaids. Awdah Salem was also found guilty of pouring acid on the body of one of the victims and hiding the remains of both women at different locations. He confessed to having persuaded one of the two maids to run away with him during Ramadan after which he killed her and threw the body into an abandoned well in Yanbu sea port in 2007. A year later Salem lured another maid to elope with him to a deserted place. After having sex with her, he hit her on the head with a rock and buried the body on a beach in Yanbu in 2008. Police managed to track down the killer following months of investigation.
On the same day, a Saudi found guilty of drug trafficking and a convicted murderer were beheaded by the sword, the interior ministry announced. The ministry, in statements carried by state news agency SPA, said Eid Al Umairi, found guilty of having dealt with “large quantities of amphetamines”, was executed in the northwestern city of Tabuk. And Meshari Al Otaibi was beheaded in Riyadh for the murder of a fellow Saudi, it said. The beheadings raised to 22 the number of executions so far this year in the state, according to an AFP count based on official reports. (Sources: IANS & AFP, 09/08/2014)