Excerpted from an ABC article:
In modern times, women in saudi Arabia condemned to death were traditionally executed by gunfire, but in recent years they have routinely been beheaded, an historic form of execution ordered under sharia, or the Muslim religious law that governs the country.It's so cute that he has children clean the blood off the sword.
The death penalty is routinely allowed for criminals convicted of murder, rape, armed robbery, drug trafficking or drug use, and apostasy or the renunciation of the Islamic faith, according to human rights group Amnesty International.
Some 82 executions were carried out in Saudi Arabia last year, according to Amnesty. It is unknown how many of them were women or carried out by sword, but the majority of the condemned were foreigners, like Nafeek.
Beheadings in Saudi Arabia are governed by certain rules.
They are conducted in public, typically in town squares or near prisons. The condemned, as well as the executioner, typically wear white. The convict is blindfolded, handcuffed and often given a sedative. A plastic tarp, several feet wide, is sometimes spread out around the convict to make cleaning up the blood and recovering her head easier.
The heads of the condemned can sometimes roll several feet from the body, said Saudi Arabia's leading executioner in a rare 2003 interview with Saudi newspaper Arab News.
"The criminal was tied and blindfolded. With one stroke of the sword I severed his head. It rolled meters away," said executioner Muhammad Saad al-Beshi, recalling his first beheading.
Al-Beshi said he has executed as many as 10 people in one day, by sword and by bullet.
"It depends what they ask me to use. Sometimes they ask me to use a sword and sometimes a gun. But most of the time I use the sword," he said.
He said he keeps his sword razor sharp, and allows his children to help clean it.
"People are amazed how fast it can separate the head from the body," he said.
Executioners like Al-Beshi are trained professionals who also carry out amputations, severing the hands, feet and tongues, of convicted criminals.
