Saudi Arabia crucified a Burmese man convicted of killing a woman and committing other crimes Wednesday in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, state media reported.

Elias Abdulkalaam Jamaleddeen entered a Burmese woman’s home firing a gun and then stabbed her to death, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency, citing an Interior Ministry statement.

Jamaleddeen was convicted of robbing her home and another home, attempted rape, and stealing firearms and ammunition. State media said his conviction was upheld and his execution was endorsed by King Salman.

Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s most prolific executioners. The country’s crucifixions include beheading the criminal and then putting his body on display with the arms outstretched.

Homosexuality and attending anti-government rallies have previously led to crucifixions in Saudi Arabia, according to Business Insider.

The crucifixion comes amid a diplomatic dispute between Saudi Arabia and Canada. Women’s rights activists from Canada were arrested in the Kingdom last week, leading to harsh criticism from Ottawa.

Saudi Arabia expelled the Canadian ambassador Wednesday due to the country's criticism. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said diplomatic talks would continue, but he said he wouldn’t back down from raising human rights issues.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. </s> Saudi Arabia crucified a Burmese man convicted of killing a woman and committing other crimes Wednesday in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, state media reported.

Elias Abdulkalaam Jamaleddeen entered a Burmese woman’s home firing a gun and then stabbed her to death, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency, citing an Interior Ministry statement.

Jamaleddeen was convicted of robbing her home and another home, attempted rape, and stealing firearms and ammunition. State media said his conviction was upheld and his execution was endorsed by King Salman.

Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s most prolific executioners. The country’s crucifixions include beheading the criminal and then putting his body on display with the arms outstretched.

Homosexuality and attending anti-government rallies have previously led to crucifixions in Saudi Arabia, according to Business Insider.

The crucifixion comes amid a diplomatic dispute between Saudi Arabia and Canada. Women’s rights activists from Canada were arrested in the Kingdom last week, leading to harsh criticism from Ottawa.

Saudi Arabia expelled the Canadian ambassador Wednesday due to the country’s criticism. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said diplomatic talks would continue, but he said he wouldn’t back down from raising human rights issues.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. </s> Authorities in Saudi Arabia have carried out a rare crucifixion on a man accused of attempted rape and murder.

The ancient punishment is reserved for the most serious crimes in the country.

Elias Abulkalaam Jamaleddeen, from Myanmar, was accused of breaking into a woman's home, firing a weapon and stabbing her to death, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

He was also accused of stealing weapons, trying to kill another man and trying to rape a woman, Bloomberg reports.

According to reports, the crucifixion ruling was made by the country's highest court and backed by the King Salman.

His was beheaded and his body strung up on a cross in Mecca on Wednesday, according to reports.

In Saudi Arabia public executions are a form of capital punishment but only the most serious of criminals are crucified.

This is when the accused is beheaded in public, usually with a sword, and then the body hung up for a period of time and is relatively unusual.

However, a recent report by the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) shows that the number of beheadings in the kingdom during the first quarter of 2018 rose by over 70 per cent compared to the same period last year.

The news of this latest execution comes days after Saudi Arabia waded into a diplomatic row with Canada.

In a statement from August 5, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced it would expel Canadian Ambassador Dennis Horakand from the country and freeze all new trade and investments because of Canada’s “interference in the Kingdom’s domestic affairs", according to Human Rights Watch .

It followed a tweet by Canada's Foreign Ministry expressing concern and calling for the release of several human rights activists detained in the country. </s> Saudi Arabia has executed and crucified a man who stabbed a woman to death.

The man from Myanmar was beheaded and his body put on display on a cross in Mecca on Wednesday.

Elias Jamaleddeen broke into a Myanmar woman's home firing a gun and then stabbed her.

He was convicted of robbing her home and another, attempted rape, and stealing firearms and ammunition.

His conviction was upheld by the courts and his execution was endorsed by King Salman, the state-run Saudi Press Agency said.

Saudi Arabia is one of the world's top executioners, but crucifixions - in which the condemned is usually beheaded and then the body put on display - are rare.

In the first four months of this year, the kingdom executed 48 people, half of them on non-violent drug charges, Human Rights Watch said.

Suspects convicted of terrorism, homicide, rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking face the death penalty.

It comes as Saudi Arabia is locked in a diplomatic row with Canada over human rights after Canada demanded the release of jailed activists.

Saudi officials last week expelled Canada's ambassador, giving him 24 hours to leave the country, and recalled its own envoy to Ottawa, while freezing all new trade over what it slammed as 'interference' in its internal affairs.

A pro-government Saudi Twitter account then provoked outrage when it posted - and then deleted - a 9/11-style digitally altered image showing a plane flying towards the Toronto skyline.

Since last night Saudi officials have reportedly given students one month to leave Canada, the foreign ministry has said it has a right to 'interfere in Canadian affairs' in retaliation and Saudi-owned media is calling out Canada's human rights record.

The kingdom said on Wednesday it had stopped all medical treatment programs in Canada and was working on the transfer of all Saudi patients from hospitals there.

Saudi Arabia froze new trade and investment with Canada and expelled the Canadian ambassador this week, pushing Canada to seek help from the United Arab Emirates and Britain to try to defuse the dispute.

Since rising to power in 2015, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has courted Western allies to support his reform plans, offering billions of dollars of arms sales and promising to fight radicalism in the kingdom.

Hundreds of billions of dollars of investments were discussed during his trips to the United States and Europe.

The dispute with Canada has shed light on scores of political and rights activists arrested in Saudi Arabia over the last two years.

State news agency SPA said Riyadh had stopped sending patients to Canadian hospitals and 'is coordinating for the transfer of all Saudi patients from Canadian hospitals ... according to directives by the leadership.'

It was unclear how many Saudi patients would be affected by the decision and how many were covered by the kingdom's health care system. The government provides health care services through several government agencies for public employees.

The move follows a series of measures the kingdom has taken since the row erupted on Monday. </s> Several legitimate news agencies, citing the official state-run Saudi Press Agency, reported on 8 August 2018 that a man accused of murder had been executed and crucified in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca … as Saudi Arabia retaliated against Canada diplomatically for criticizing Saudi human rights abuses.

The juxtaposition of the Saudi kingdom’s lashing out about human rights abuses even as they engaged in a particularly gruesome form of capital punishment caused some viewers to question whether Internet memes reporting the circumstances could be believed:

Citing the official Saudi government-run news agency, the Associated Press reported that Elias Abulkalaam Jamaleddeen, a Myanmar national, was accused of breaking into a woman’s home and stabbing her to death, as well as stealing weapons, attempting to kill another man, and attempted rape. He was reportedly executed on 7 August 2018 using a rare (but not unheard of) form of capital punishment: “Crucifixions in Saudi Arabia entail hanging a body in public after an execution, and are unusual.”

The news came as Saudi Arabia aggressively reacted to Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland and Global Affairs Canada, who openly criticized the Middle Eastern kingdom for imprisoning two human rights activists, Samar and Raif Badawi:

Saudi Arabia in turn accused Canada of interfering in their internal affairs:

In the resulting dust-up, the Saudis expelled Canada’s ambassador and recalled their own from Canada. In addition, the Saudis pledged to halt new business with Canada, pulled scholarships, grounded flights to and from Canada, and transferred their medical program out of the country.

The spat grew even more heated when a Twitter account associated with a Saudi youth organization tweeted, then deleted, an image many interpreted as threatening because it echoed the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 by showing an airliner flying toward Canada’s iconic CN Tower in Toronto. Most of the nineteen 9/11 attackers hailed from Saudi Arabia.

Infographic KSA, the group that shared the tweet, apologized for posting the image before their entire account was deleted. </s> A Kuwaiti court has sentenced a Lebanese man and his wife to death after they were convicted in absentia of killing a Filipina maid in a case that triggered a crisis between the Philippines and the Gulf Arab state, Kuwaiti newspapers reported on Sunday.

A Kuwaiti court has sentenced a Lebanese man and his wife to death after they were convicted in absentia of killing a Filipina maid in a case that triggered a crisis between the Philippines and the Gulf Arab state, Kuwaiti newspapers reported on Sunday.

Couple sentenced to death for murder of maid in Kuwait

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte last month ordered workers in Kuwait to return home over alleged abuse following the discovery of the female worker’s body in the freezer of an abandoned home that belonged to a Lebanese man and his Syrian wife.

Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai said the pair were convicted in absentia of premeditated murder. Al-Qabas, another newspaper, said the criminal court issued its verdict at its first hearing, convicting the pair of “killing the Filipina worker and putting her body in the freezer”. It said the murder was discovered more than a year after it had taken place and that the couple had been sentenced in absentia. Both newspapers reported the death sentence.

The sentences are subject to appeal under Kuwaiti law. Lebanese media reported last month that the worker’s former employer was in custody in connection with the case and that authorities were considering a Kuwaiti request to extradite him.

AFP news agency, quoting a judicial source, reported in February that the woman was being held in her native Syria. Kuwait and the Philippines, eager to end the crisis, signed an agreement last month regulating some working conditions for domestic workers in the Gulf Arab State.

There are more than 250,000 Filipinos in Kuwait, the Philippine Foreign Ministry estimates, with most working as domestic helpers. There are also large numbers in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. </s> Jordan hanged 15 death row prisoners including convicted “terrorists” at dawn on Saturday, its information minister said, in a further break with a moratorium on executions it observed between 2006 and 2014.

Ten of those put to death had been convicted of terrorism offences and five of “heinous” crimes including rape, Mahmud al-Momani told the official Petra news agency.

The attorney general for Amman district, Ziad al-Dmour, said the executions represented “a clear message to anyone who tries to undermines the security of the nation”.

Amnesty International, however, expressed shock at the hangings of 15 prisoners — the largest number to be put to death on a single day in Jordan.

“The horrific scale and secrecy around these executions is shocking,” said Amnesty’s deputy director at the group’s Beirut regional office, Samah Hadid.

Momani said all those executed were Jordanians and were hanged in Swaqa prison, south of the capital Amman.

Among the terrorism offences were a 2006 attack on tourists at Amman’s Roman amphitheatre that killed a Briton and a June 2016 attack on an intelligence service base north of the capital that left five agents dead.

They also included the September 2016 murder of Christian writer Nahed Hattar as he stood trial for publishing a cartoon deemed offensive to Islam.

King Abdullah II had said in 2005 that Jordan aimed to become the first Middle Eastern country to halt executions in line with most European nations.

Courts continued to hand down death sentences but they were not carried out.

However, public opinion blamed a rise in crime on the policy and in December 2014 Jordan hanged 11 men convicted of murder, drawing criticism from human rights groups.

Opinion hardened after the murder by the Islamic State (IS) group of captured Jordanian pilot Maaz al-Kassasbeh whose plane had crashed in a jihadist-held region of Syria in December 2014 while serving with a US-led coalition.

Grisly footage posted in February the following year of him being burnt alive in a cage outraged the public.

Swiftly afterwards, Jordan hanged two people convicted of terrorism offences, one of them Sajida al-Rishawi.

She had taken part in a 2005 suicide attack on luxury hotels in Amman organised by IS’s forebear, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, but her explosives failed to detonate.

According to judicial sources, 94 people remain on death row in Jordan, most of them convicted of murder or rape, following Saturday’s executions.

Dmour, the Amman attorney general, said executions were “the fate of all those who carry out criminal offences”.

But Amnesty International warned that the death penalty was not the way to improve security.

“This is a major step backwards for both Jordan and efforts to end the death penalty – a senseless and ineffective means of administering justice,” Hadid said in a statement.

“Jordan had for years been a leading example in a region where recourse to the death penalty is all too frequent… Hanging people will not improve public security,” Hadid added.

Jordan, which hosts hundreds of thousands of refugees from the conflict in Syria, carries out air strikes on IS in both Syria and Iraq as a member of the US-led coalition.

The pro-Western kingdom fears a spillover of the jihadist threat and closely monitors thousands of Jordanians suspected of being IS or Al-Qaeda sympathisers.

In June 2016, a car bomb at a crossing from Syria, claimed by IS, killed seven Jordanian security personnel. Amman has responded by sealing the border. </s> AMMAN, Jordan – Jordan hanged 15 inmates at dawn Saturday, including 10 who were convicted of terrorism, in what officials are calling one of the largest executions since the country reinstated the death penalty two years ago.

The other five prisoners were found guilty of major criminal offenses, including incest and rape, government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani told state-run Petra news agency.

Among those executed were five prisoners charged in last year’s assault on a Jordanian intelligence agency office in the Baqaa refugee camp that left five dead and in an attack against security forces in the northern city of Irbid.

The other convicted inmates were responsible for separate attacks and bombings dating to 2003, Petra news agency reported.

Samah Hadid, deputy director at Amnesty International’s Beirut regional office, said, “The horrific scale and secrecy around these executions is shocking.”

“There is no evidence that the death penalty addresses violent crime, including terrorism-related offenses.”

The men were hanged at a correctional center south of Amman.

Jordan had previously imposed a nine-year moratorium on the death penalty. It was lifted in January 2015.

The government says it has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to terrorism or even perceived sympathy for terrorist groups — even voicing support for such groups is an offense punishable with jail time. </s> A court has sentenced three Hindu men, including a police officer, to life imprisonment for kidnapping, raping and murdering an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Indian-controlled Kashmir, in a case that has exacerbated tensions in the disputed region.

A court has sentenced three Hindu men, including a police officer, to life imprisonment for kidnapping, raping and murdering an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Indian-controlled Kashmir, in a case that has exacerbated tensions in the disputed region.

Life terms for three over rape and murder in Kashmir of Muslim girl, eight

Judge Tejwinder Singh sentenced three other policemen to five years in prison for destroying evidence, prosecutor Santokh Singh told reporters.

The judge acquitted another defendant due to insufficient evidence.

An eighth suspect, a minor, will be tried separately by a juvenile court, Santokh Singh said.

The girl, who was a member of a nomadic tribe, was grazing her family’s ponies in the forests of the Himalayan foothills when she was kidnapped in January 2018.

Her mutilated body was found in the woods a week later.

The case sparked protests across Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region where rebels have been fighting for years for independence or unification with Pakistan and there is great distrust of the government.

Prosecutors plan to appeal to a higher court and seek the death penalty for the three defendants who received life sentences.

Thousands of members of a radical Hindu group had demanded the release of the defendants, insisting they were innocent.

The trial was shifted to Pathankot, a town in neighbouring Punjab state, following accusations that local Hindu leaders and politicians were trying to block the investigation.

The prosecution said the girl was raped in a small village temple in Kathua district after having been kept sedated for four days, and was then bludgeoned to death.

The girl’s father, Mohammed Akhtar, said by phone that the men should be “punished speedily, not just convicted”.

“Our family has gone through hell,” he said.

“Our hearts are bleeding. These beasts should be hanged.”

India has been shaken by a series of sexual assaults in recent years, including the gang rape and murder of a student on a New Delhi bus in 2012.

That attack galvanised a country where widespread violence against women had long been quietly accepted.

While the government has passed a series of laws increasing punishment for rape, it’s rare for more than a few weeks to pass without another brutal sexual assault being reported.
Saudi Arabia reports the execution and crucifixion, in Mecca, of a man from Myanmar. The man was sentenced for breaking into the home of a woman and stabbing her, which led to her death, as well as for other crimes.