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Saudi Arabia beheads woman for 'sorcery' - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Saudi Arabia beheads woman for 'sorcery' - Middle East - Al Jazeera English
A Saudi woman has been beheaded after being convicted of practising sorcery, which is banned in the conservative Gulf kingdom, the country's interior ministry said.

Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser was executed on Monday in the northern province of Jawf for "practising witchcraft and sorcery", the ministry said in a statement carried by SPA, Saudi Arabia's state news agency.

The ministry gave no further details of the charges for which the woman was convicted.

London-based newspaper al-Hayat quoted a member of the Saudi religious police as saying Nasser was in her 60s. The official claimed she had tricked people into giving her money, claiming that she could cure their illnesses.

According to the report, she apparently charged up to $800 a session.

Amnesty International said the beheading brought the number of executions in the kingdom to 73 this year. Another woman was beheaded in October for killing her husband by setting his house on fire.

There are no available statistics on how many women have been executed in Saudi Arabia.

'Truly appalling'

Amnesty condemned Monday's execution as "truly appalling", and called on Saudi Arabia to urgently halt the practice.

"The charges of 'witchcraft and sorcery' are not defined as crimes in Saudi Arabia", Philip Luther, Amnesty's interim director of the Middle East and North Africa, said.


"To use them to subject someone to the cruel and extreme penalty of execution is truly appalling," he added in a statement, which stressed the "urgent need" to stop executions.

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