Mecca mosque thief loses hand
2007-11-05 21:31
Riyadh - An Egyptian pickpocket has had his right hand cut off in Saudi Arabia for robbing visitors to Islam's holiest site, the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the official news agency SPA said on Monday.
Amro Mohammed Zarif Nasr was found guilty of theft inside the mosque in the holy city in the west of the kingdom and was sentenced to amputation, an interior ministry statement said.
Theft from the Grand Mosque and from the Mosque of the Prophet Mohammed at Medina, the second most holy site for Muslims, can be punished by amputation of the hand up to the wrist with repeat offenders losing both hands.
Saudi Arabia applies a strict form of sharia Islamic law, with theft committed anywhere else in the kingdom punishable by flogging and prison.
Murder, rape, drug smuggling, armed robbery, black magic, sodomy, homosexuality and apostasy carry sentences of beheading. Adultery can be punished by beheading or stoning.
- AFP