Jeddah: A man in Saudi Arabia has been beheaded on court orders for sexually assaulting and murdering two Asian housemaids in a sea port, a media report has said.
Awdah Salem, a Yemen national, was also found guilty of pouring acid on the body of one of the victims and hiding the remains of both women at different locations.
He confessed to having persuaded one of the two maids to run away with him during Ramadan after which he killed her and threw the body into an abandoned well in Yanbu sea port in 2007.
A year later Salem lured another maid to elope with him to a deserted place. After having sex with her, he hit her on the head with a rock and buried the body on a beach in Yanbu in 2008.
Police managed to track down the killer following months of investigation.
A statement issued by the Saudi interior ministry confirmed that the general court issued the verdict based on the extensive charges, described as “evil, gruesome, and inhumane”.
“The court sentenced him to death as a deterrent for others and higher authorities have endorsed execution of the sentence, while the appeal court and the supreme court had earlier endorsed the punishment.”
Meanwhile, a Saudi found guilty of drug trafficking and a convicted murderer were beheaded by the sword on Friday, the interior ministry announced.
The ministry, in statements carried by state news agency SPA, said Eid Al Umairi, found guilty of having dealt with “large quantities of amphetamines”, was executed in the northwestern city of Tabuk.
And Meshari Al Otaibi was beheaded in Riyadh for the murder of a fellow Saudi, it said.
The beheadings raised to 22 the number of executions so far this year in the state, according to an AFP count based on official reports.
Last year, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights denounced a “sharp increase in the use of capital punishment” in Saudi Arabia.
In 2013, there were 78 executions.
Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death in Saudi Arabia.
