Saudi beheads man for murder

Hadi bin Rashid al-Dosari, a Saudi national, was convicted of stabbing to death a fellow tribesman following a dispute, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

The beheading in the eastern town of Al-Ihsa raises to 62 the number of death sentences carried out in the kingdom this year, despite international concern.

A United Nations independent expert called in September for an immediate moratorium on the death penalty in Saudi Arabia.

Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said trials “are by all accounts grossly unfair” and defendants are often not allowed a lawyer.

He said confessions were 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. -AFP