On this date last year, a Sudanese man who “practised witchcraft and sorcery” was beheaded in a Medina carpark.
This being the 21st century — whatever the Saudi statutes might say — it was caught on film.
Warning: Mature Content It’s filmed from too far away to be gory per se, but this video clearly captures the severing of a man’s head.
“Abdul Hamid is understood to have been arrested in 2005 after he was entrapped by a man working for the Mutawa’een (religious police),” according to the Daily Mail.
He was asked to concoct a spell that would cause the officer’s father to leave his second wife.
According to the officer’s account Abdul Hamid agreed to carry out the curse in exchange for 6,000 Saudi Arabian riyals (approximately £1,000).
He was beaten after his arrest and thought to have been forced to admit to acts of sorcery.
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In a secret trial, where he was not allowed legal representation, he was sentenced to death by the General Court in Medina in March 2007.
Few details are available about his trial but he is reported to have been tried behind closed doors and without legal representation.
At the time of his arrest, English language Saudi daily The Saudi Gazette ran an article entitled Magic Maids which said that ‘we must face up to the threats from some maids and servants and their satanic games of witchcraft and sorcery, their robbery, murder, entrapment of husbands, corruption of children and other countless stories of crime that have been highlighted by both experts and victims of these crimes’.
On this day..
- 1829: Helena Katarina Löv
- 1791: George Dingler, proved guilty
- 1442: Nguyen Trai
- 2008: Kedisaletse Tsobane
- 1719: Frans Anneessens, Brussels guildmaster
- 1851: Aaron Stookey, clemency denied
- 1946: Ernst Lohmeyer, theologian
- 1729: Jephthah Big, ineffective extortionist
- 1902: Fred Hardy, the first hanged in Alaska
- 1902: Ernest Loveswar, the last hanging in Meade County
- 1692: Giles Corey, "more weight!"
- 46 B.C.E.: Vercingetorix the Gaul