Saudi beheads drug smuggler
2007-11-15 16:04
Riyadh - A Ghanaian man was beheaded by the sword in Saudi Arabia on Thursday after he was convicted of drug smuggling, the Interior Ministry announced.
Jameel Hassan was executed in the Red Sea city of Jeddah for smuggling cocaine into the kingdom, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.
The execution took to 147 the number of people beheaded in Saudi Arabia so far this year, a record in recent years, according to a toll compiled from official reports.
The previous highest number of executions in a year was in 2000, when 113 people were beheaded. Last year 37 people were executed.
Executions are usually carried out in public in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia, which applies a strict form of sharia, or Islamic law.
Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry the death penalty in the kingdom.