Rights Group Blasts Saudi Beheadings

Human Rights Watch Says Display Of Executed Sri Lankans Violates International Law

(AP)  A human rights group said Thursday that Saudi Arabia violated international law when it ordered the beheadings earlier this week of four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh.

Human Rights Watch said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights. The group called on Saudi Arabia to halt all pending executions and retry those remaining on death row.

"The execution of these four migrants, who had been badly beaten and locked up for years without access to lawyers, is a travesty of justice," Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a report.

"International law only allows states to use the death penalty for the most serious crimes and in the most stringent of circumstances — and neither condition was met in this case," Whitson said.

Saudi officials did not respond to a request for comment on the Human Rights Watch report.

Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam that calls for people convicted of murder, drug trafficking, rape and armed robbery to be executed in public with a sword. Beheaded bodies are displayed only when there is a specific court order in cases considered particularly offensive.

The four Sri Lankans were convicted of forming a gang that robbed several companies, threatened accountants and workers with weapons and shot one of them and stole his car, said the Saudi Interior Ministry.

Earlier in February, investigators from the New York-based Human Rights Watch had met and spoken to one of the four, Ranjith Silva. According to the group's report, Silva was apparently unaware of his imminent execution and was hopeful for clemency.

Silva said he and Victor Corea, Sanath Pushpakumara, and Sharmila Sangeeth Kumara, took up armed robberies in early 2004 because their Saudi employer was paying them each only $67 of the $107 a month agreed in their contract — money that barely covered lodgings.

Silva also told the Human Rights Watch he was never advised he could see a lawyer or that he could face the death penalty. The four were not notified of proceedings ahead of time and had no consular assistance.

Silva also said he was not told how to appeal the verdict and never received a copy of the verdict.

"Defendants sentenced to death must, under international law, have a meaningful right to appeal their verdicts, but these men didn't get the most basic safeguards," Whitson said.

According to an Amnesty International report earlier this week, two of the four may even have been unaware that they had been sentenced to death. The group reported that Sharmila Sangeeth Kumara believed he had been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

After the trial, the Sri Lankans managed to contact their embassy from prison, but were told it was too late to appoint a lawyer. The Sri Lankan government said it had appealed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for clemency twice and was now trying to retrieve the bodies.

Saudi officials would not confirm that the body had been displayed but did confirm the four were executed Monday. They also confirmed the court order for the men's bodies to be displayed after the execution.

Amnesty International has said that besides the four Sri Lankans, six foreigners have been executed this year. They include three Pakistanis, two Iraqis and one Nigerian. Seven Saudi Arabians, including one woman, have also been executed. In 2006, 86 men and two women were executed, half of them foreign nationals, the report said.

[sclaires]

I imagine they don't have prisons full up the way it is here. I don't condone capital punishment but it does keep the prison population down.

[mavilaru]

Acauble1

It is the only country in the whole world where you could see government sponsored public beheadings.

[acauble1]

Well, that just wipes out Saudi Arabia as a potential vacation spot for me!

Really, like I, or anyone of any common sense would ever want to visit that sh't hole anyway!

Other than Mecca (if you're a Muslim), there is nothing worth a f'ck in Saudi Arabia to see.

STOP DEPENDENCE ON MIDDLE EAST OIL NOW! MAKE SAUDI ARABIA THE THIRD-WORLD COUNTRY IT DESERVES TO BE!!!

[mavilaru]

Dear MityWhity

Non of the beheaded Sri Lankans are Muslims for sure. Two of them are appeared to be christians or catholics as per their names and surnames. Other two are definitely Buddhists.

No religion does not preach hatred and revenge as Islam. Islam is for revenge and hatred although muslims try to whitewash it.

There is no difference between Saudi king or onetime USA big brother OSAMA BiN LADEN. They are born to kill. However, muslims are busy killing each other in these days while shouting ",,,,,, ,,,,,"

[j-whitman]

Bush still thinks it's a good idea to have them in charge of our Air Space & Sea Ports in New York & New Jersy

[standlee5]

The mosques are nothing but garbage heaps in which the minds of insane islamists are filled with islamic rubbish and barbarism!

Posted by Agnim at 04:57 PM : Feb 22, 2007

Amen to that.

[standlee5]

Can you imagine that as your last conversation? Wooooooooo!
Posted by MITYWHITY at 04:53 PM : Feb 22, 2007


Can you believe this type of barbarism in the 21st century. Remember how squeemish we'd get in grade school learning about the French guillotine? Now here we are with these butchers entering the modern world. Animals all of them.

[j0hnwi11iams]

In conservative circles, there is no problem too big that killing more people wouldn't solve.

[lars008-2009]

MityWhity ..... exactly....

where are and were they when non muslims are being slaughtered all over the globe???
Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch

[j-whitman]

Why in the world does Bush support the Sudi's (Sunni's) they contribute to 96% of our casualties in Iraq & 9/11 terrrorist where from the UAE ?????

[mitywhity]

Hey these Sri Lankans were muslim anyway. So, how can they complain? I thought they all believe that sharia law was the end all and be all of justice. They probably were smiling as their heads slid across the floor. Ever since Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg and the rest of the victims of infallible muslim jihad, I don't have a whole lot of concern for muslims getting the business end of their own blessed religion's law.

[lars008-2009]

Is islam a violation of international law???

islam practices slavery on non muslims
islam practices apartheid on non muslims
islam practices rape on non muslims
islam practices rape on babies and animals
islam practices genocide on non muslims

all are violations of international law and are crimes against humanity

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/22/world/main2505445.shtml
Imam Khomeini - Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution
http://www.homa.org/Details.asp?ContentID=2137352826&TOCID=2083225445
Malaysia women 'suffer apartheid'
The daughter of Malaysia's former prime minister has launched a scathing attack on the roles and status of Muslim women in the country.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4784784.stm
A matter of tolerance
http://musingwithmarinamahathir.blogspot.com/2006/12/matter-of-tolerance.html
Marina Mahathir
http://musingwithmarinamahathir.blogspot.com/

[mitywhity]

I think the executioner video is at liveleak, youtube, or compfused. Search for Saudi or executioner

[musty2u]

I heard the swords go on auction at E-Bay

[agnim]

THESE DISGUSTING ACTS OF BARBARISM NEED TO END NOW!
Why couldn't the Saudi slave masters not just deport mere thieves? Tsk-tsk

Instead of targeting individuals, the warmongers of the so-called war on terror should be targeting the signs and symbols of insane islam, and remove that scourge from the minds of maniac muslims and from the planet.

Especially that mosque at mecca and all the mosques should be shut down, or emptied and flattened!

The mosques are nothing but garbage heaps in which the minds of insane islamists are filled with islamic rubbish and barbarism!

[mitywhity]

I could go for that form of capital punishment being instituted here in the U.S.!!

If you search hard enough you can find a Saudi TV interview with their most most beloved executioner. It's amazing - they have a female interviewer who is all smiles and giggly while she admires this dude. He is like a Michael Jordan over there and his son is in training to succeed him. It weird how he says that he counsels his victims to remain very still and do not try to jerk away or the sword will lodge in their skull or cut just half of their head off. Can you imagine that as your last conversation? Wooooooooo!

[johnshaft4]

Just like the tyrant the Shah of Iran, the US govt. is backing and supporting evil, repressive, corrupt regimes like the House of Saudi Swine. This is why they hate us...

[rheola-2009]

If persons decide to live a life against the norms of society in general, then they should be treated for what they are, that is anti social, with no respect or care for the rights of others, and as such do not have the right to partake in society. for to long the western world has treated these creatures far to leniently, so much so, they know full well they can get away with almost anything, with the risk of little else than a slap on the wrist.

[musty2u]

Seems like they have a good handle on dealing with cases.