Saudi displays SLankan bodies to deter crime
RIYADH - Saudi Arabia has put the bodies of four Sri Lankans beheaded in Riyadh on display in public in an effort to deter a rising crime wave by foreigners, Saudi media reported on Tuesday.
International rights groups have often accused the conservative kingdom, a key US ally, of applying draconian and arbitrary justice, beheading murderers, rapists and drug traffickers in public by the sword.
The desert kingdom, which is home to Islam’s holiest shrines, says it applies strict Islamic law.
The Sri Lankan gang were executed on Monday at a public square in a busy market district of the city of four million.
Saudi media said that although no one was killed in the series of robberies they were convicted of, the four men were given the death sentence due to the organised nature of the violent hold-ups, raising fears of foreign mafias.
Al-Riyadh newspaper said on Tuesday the men were ”crucified” -- tied to wooden beams after beheading -- as part of moves to deter other expatriates from crime.
“There is a pressing need to review many of the negative practices of foreigners in the kingdom,” al-Riyadh quoted Abdel-Rahman al-Luweiheq, who teaches at the Imam bin Saud University, as saying.
”Foreigners in the kingdom are implementing criminal plans made abroad,” he said, referring to mafia-like outfits.
Almost one third of Saudi Arabia’s population of 24 million people are foreigners, mostly blue-collar workers from Asia.
Most are tied to Saudi employers who usually take their passports as a way of controlling their movements and behaviour, a system rights groups says deprives expatriates of rights.
A Sri Lankan embassy spokesman expressed shock that the sentence was implemented despite appeals to spare them.
“We are shocked, we never expected any of this,” the spokesman said. “We made an appeal asking for clemency.”
Saudi newspapers regularly carry reports about busted drug, alcohol and prostitution rackets, often involving African and Asian residents in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.
Many pilgrims to Islamic holy cities near Jeddah stay on in the country -- whose economy is booming because of high world oil prices -- and thus slip off the radar of state control.
***UPDATE***UPDATE***UPDATE***
It appears that even conversions to islam will not get you a reprieve, even if you are told that a conversion will get you one:
Promise of reprieve after conversion to Islam reneged
...
Saudi officials would not confirm that the body display had happened but did confirm the four were executed. Saudi officials also confirmed that the court order issued in the case had called for the men's bodies to be strung up after execution.
Several newspapers in Riyadh reported that the bodies were strung up, but The Associated Press could not independently confirm this.
Victor Gorea, Ranjith Silva, Sanath Pushpakumara, and Shamila Sangeeth Kumara were executed for committing a number of armed robberies. Both Gorea and Pashpakumara leave behind two children.
In the lead up to the execution, the prisoners had converted their religion from Buddhist to Muslim when they were told it would earn them a reprieve, a sister of one of the prisoners said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
"The Saudis said if you become Muslim we will change the punishment, he became a Muslim, but they didn't change it," said the sister, who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. "We begged ... that it not be that punishment, but they didn't listen. They just said they can't give us the body."
The Sri Lanka government said in a media release it had appealed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for clemency twice, first by former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and subsequently by President Mahinda Rajapakse.
***UPDATE 2***UPDATE 2***UPDATE 2***
Saudi displays SLankan bodies to deter crime
...
Saudi media said that although no one was killed in the series of robberies they were convicted of, the four men were given the death sentence due to the organised nature of the violent hold-ups, raising fears of foreign mafias.
Al-Riyadh newspaper said on Tuesday the men were ”crucified” -- tied to wooden beams after beheading -- as part of moves to deter other expatriates from crime.
“There is a pressing need to review many of the negative practices of foreigners in the kingdom,” al-Riyadh quoted Abdel-Rahman al-Luweiheq, who teaches at the Imam bin Saud University, as saying.
”Foreigners in the kingdom are implementing criminal plans made abroad,” he said, referring to mafia-like outfits.
...
HatTip: UmmahNewsLinks.com
Pertinent Links:
1) Saudi displays SLankan bodies to deter crime
2) Bodies of four Sri Lankans ordered strung up after execution in Saudi Arabia
3) Saudi displays SLankan bodies to deter crime
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