Per the BBC’s report of a Saudi Interior Ministry statement, a woman named Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser was beheaded for sorcery in the northern province of Jawf on this date in 2011.

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

Our correspondent said she was arrested in April 2009.

But the human rights group Amnesty International, which has campaigned for Saudis previously sentenced to death on sorcery charges, said it had never heard of her case until now, he adds.

…

Amnesty says that Saudi Arabia does not actually define sorcery as a capital offence. However, some of its conservative clerics have urged the strongest possible punishments against fortune-tellers and faith healers as a threat to Islam.

On this day..

• 1799: Nicola Fiorentino, Jacobin man
• 1868: The Reno brothers and Charles Anderson lynched in New Albany
• 1924: A day in the death penalty around the U.S.
• 2013: Jang Sung-taek, North Korean purgee
• 1888: Tsimequor, indigenous Snuneymuxw
• 1957: Jorge Villanueva Torres, Monstruo de Armendáriz
• 1996: Lem Tuggle, Tim Kaine client
• 1952: Hard Luck Billy Cook
• 1942: Klava Nazarova, Hero of the Soviet Union
• 1777: Rev. Benjamin Russen, child rapist
• 1984: Alpha Otis O’Daniel Stephens: hear it live
• 1635: Ivan Sulyma