Saudi Arabia to behead and crucify paedophile...

[Alabama]

Saudi Arabia story

This makes me feel uncomfortable. Not that I don't think that the man has committed awful, terrible crimes, maybe not even about the death penalty (although I don't agree with that on principle) - perhaps the public manner in which it will happen? I understand that people believe that punishments such as these are just and act as a good deterrant. So, what is the issue? the death penalty? the method chosen? the public aspect? still not sure... Would be interested in hearing your views...

[matthew123]

I think in this particular case the Saudis are right on all counts.

[????]

Looks to me like two horrific crimes.

I don't support the death penalty and believe that the state should aspire to be above the babarism of some of the people that live within it. And before we get a lecture on crime rates in these medieval places, I think a state that removes almost all right for 50% of its population on the basis of their gender is committing, literally, millions of crimes on a daily basis.

[Brendan]

Yep it?s difficult to judge another country with such a vastly different society and approach to government. And who are we to say anyway?

As quids says the very premise of many of the laws and social norms in Saudi Arabia would by default be criminal in our society. But the reverse is true a well.

[PeckhamRose]

If they behead him what's the point of also then crucifying him?

I mean, he's dead already. And where would they put the thing they put round his head if his head's not there?

Of course it's not right to do this. Somalia was recently in the news for how it stones people to death (including women who have been raped but they stone them for being adulterers!) and cuts off the hands of thieves. All those in favour of this form of justice raise your stumps!

And the problem with all this is it just makes us feel uncomfortable. It should be making us absolutely livid enough to - oh I don't know - write to our MPs.

[Brendan]

What can we do though? Invade the Muslim world?

Oh, erm?

[mockney piers]

Apparently the crucifixition is to act as a deterrent, a bit like the gibbets with rotting carcasses of thieves we used to put, or the old head on the spike on the tower.

Thing is this chap was apparently mentally ill, and I can just about see a hand loping as a deterrent for thievery, but who's going to look up and think 'ooh, I won't have my wicked way with my niece after all. It's a pretty niche crime.

As for medieval punishment, you were far more likely to end up in the stocks or judged and punished by your community in medieval times. The heyday of capital punishment (and the crowds going to see it) was in the supposed enlightenment period of the 18th century.

[legalbeagle]

JoJo09 - I think it is a good thing that you feel uncomfortable. I do too, in fact I think it is appalling. I feel uncomfortable because a nation state is treating a citizen is a base, inhumane and disgusting way. The lesson a population takes from that is that it is ok to treat someone in that way, in certain circumstances. And I don't think it is ever ok.

It is a punishment designed to cause pain and horror and to terrify and humiliate. Watching any human being suffer in that way brings out feelings of empathy and sorrow, simply because, whatever they have done, they are human. The fact that it is sactioned by a nation state makes it worse. Something so barbaric is enshrined in law and gives out the message that this is - officially - ok. We are allowed to do this. No matter how it makes you feel, it is legal and therefore right that it should be done. If this were done to a person in the course of a crime we would be horrified. But because it is done by the state, it is ok. What are you teaching the population? That two wrongs make a right. An eye for an eye. Vengeance is not just acceptable but demanded. The people you put in charge of your country have no limits on what they can do to an individual. I can't think of anything scarier than that.

Maybe that's why you feel bad?

[Alabama]

I guess it makes me feel scared of what people can be capable of. Obviously the crimes are horrific, but they are comitted by an individual - and possibly a mentally ill individual at that. The cold, organised, calm approach to not only killing someone but in such a harsh, public way really bothers me. Not that the electric chair and trigger happy US Governors don't also bother me, but it isn't a public event.

I also get very angry about the punishment system in the UK - which I can't see is any kind of deterrant at all. However many years people get put away for, it is accepted that they will be released in many less than that - even for rape and violent crime. Didn't one of the Baby P killers get his sentence overturned, recently?

There must be some sort of happy medium, surely?? Anyway, if beheading were a proper deterrant, then the crimes would not still be being committed. In society, there will always be people who are deviant and do something if they think they will get away with it.

[PeckhamRose]

"In society, there will always be people who are deviant and do something if they think they will get away with it."

Not to mention the poor who see theft as just a way to survive. It's a class issue innit.

[Keef]

Beheading, hanging, electric chair, painless injection... Personally I don't feel it makes a big difference. Basically the state is exercising it's power, shackling someone up, and dragging them to their death, as an act of revenge. Whe fact it is a 22 year old who is mentally ill, just makes it even sadder.

[mockney piers]

It was during the period of high execution rates that crime went up that we realised that capital punishment simply isn't a deterrent. It was at this time that campaigns to end the practice began in earnest and it was reduced to the capital crimes of murder and treason.

As keef says its about revenge. And keef, much as i totally agree with you that it's ultimately about the misuse of state power, on the side issue of the manner, give me a firing squad over the chair any day of the week. I can't think of a mor e horific way to go judging by some of the accounts.

[louisiana]

Brendan Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Yep it?s difficult to judge another country with

> such a vastly different society and approach to

> government. And who are we to say anyway?

Um, would you say the same about 1936 Germany? That it is 'difficult to judge another country'? 'Who are we to say'?

[matthew123]

The guy needs to be punished that is clear - the Saudis have it appears given him the maximum sentence in their country. Would he have got the maximum sentence in the U.K. for his crimes? Maybe, or perhaps he'd have been released after a few years cured of his mental illness or maybe escaped on a day trip to the seaside. I'd rather we eliminate any chance it could be repeated, and if public execution is a deterrent to just one less victim then it has worked.

[legalbeagle]

If public beheading and posthumous mutilation were a deterrent the crime wouldn't have been committed in the first place. Pick a study on the subject. They pretty much all show no link between murder rates and the use of (any kind of) capital punishment. Murder and serious crime rates in the US China and Jamaica - to name a few - are higher than average and they all have capital punishment.

[matthew123]

"They pretty much all show no link.." => that says to me that some studies recognise it as working as a deterrent, which goes back to my point of it being justified if it means one less victim.

"If public beheading and posthumous mutilation were a deterrent the crime wouldn't have been committed in the first place" => Not so for this offender but what message will it send to those who were deterred if it is now seen that capital punishment is not served on this convict..

I'm not sure murder rates would remain the same, or be even lower, if they abolished capital punishment in US, China and Jamaica.

[legalbeagle]

Matthew - what I meant was that none of the studies I have read show capital punishment working as a deterrent for violent crime. At all. What message will it send if this perpetrator is not killed in this horrific way? Maybe it will send the message that the state recognises the severity of the crime but does not stoop to its barbaric levels by way of punishment? Because they are above such inhumanity? Which is what distinguishes them from the criminal?

A good message in my view.

[HAL9000]

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the few states that fully implements Islamic Sharia Law, which is virtually identical to Jewish Talmudic Law as applied to Gentiles (i.e. Noahide Law).

Both recognise mental illness as a mitigating factor, albeit to a limited extent since their diagnostic criteria are not to western standards (some rabbis believe that Christianity is a mental illness). The Saudi criminal justice system does not execute the mentally ill, who are treated with compassion under Sharia Law.

Very few Saudi nationals are executed: murder, manslaughter and rape, for example, are usually settled through repentance and rehabilitation provided the victim (or their family) accepts a compensation payment - so-called "blood money".

Most executions are of Moslem foreign workers who are too poor to pay the compensation demanded and have no influential local contacts to intercede on their behalf.

Public execution is stipulated by Sharia/Nochide Law and was the norm throughout the Christian world until very recently. It is still practiced in some states of the USA, for example.

In my opinion (having witnessed the act), beheading by sword appears to be just as swift and humane as hanging or electrocution. In Saudi the subjects are heavily sedated and do not appear to be conscious of their fate.

The Saudis are not barbarians. I count them amongst the warmest and friendliest people I have ever met. In short, they have been indoctrinated by Judaeo-religious ideas over many centuries to believe that they are obeying God's will.

Personally, I am against capital punishment AND religious indoctrination.

[localgirlwithdreads]

It is gruesome but also necessary. You can't let nonces go around raping kids.

[legalbeagle]

HAL9000 - that's a really interesting post, and I agree with what you are saying. I don't consider a whole nation of people to be barbaric just because their government takes certain actions, and it would be ignorant for anyone to do so. I just have an abhorrence of the death penalty wherever and however it takes place - today's news of the execution of the Washington sniper makes me equally sad. But then again I have had the odd experience of corresponding with men who were convinced they were going to be hanged and I suppose that gives me a different view from a person whose loved ones have been raped or murdered. Nationality, type of government, religious persuasion or lack of make no difference to me in this debate.

[HAL9000]

I know exactly what you mean. As a volunteer, I work with allegedly wrongfully convicted prisoners in the UK through Innocent and have visited several Saudi prisons and rehabilitation centres (the latter being as good as anything we have in Europe, in my opinion) as an official guest of the Saudi government, which is how I came to be invited to witness beheadings and amputations.

It does change ones perspective on life, the universe and everything.

[Keef]

As keef says its about revenge. And keef, much as i totally agree with you that it's ultimately about the misuse of state power, on the side issue of the manner, give me a firing squad over the chair any day of the week. I can't think of a mor e horific way to go judging by some of the accounts.

Yeah, I almost didn't add the chair, was thinking about The Green Mile!

[vinceayre]

I find it horrifying what they are going to do to him, until I think of the little boy he kidnapped took to the desert sodomized and then left him there to roast to death in the sun. Some people deserve to die in the most horrific and painful ways simply because of what they have done, that little boy wasn't one of them.

[legalbeagle]

Vinceayre - It is incredibly difficult to find any human sympathy for someone who does that to a child and I can't even begin to imagine how I would feel were that my three year old. I don't agree with the death penalty not because I have sympathy for the prisoner (though reports of mental illness in this case make it harder to judge that point) but because I'm concerned about what it does to society as a whole when the state acts in a manner just as barbaric as the criminal. There's no question that the fate of that child was heartbreaking.

[matthew123]

What does it do for society if criminals are not adequately punished - which in this instance would be anything less than the death sentence. Whether it's barbaric or not is another matter - but what works best as a deterrent, is it something merciful or something horrific. People are deterred from breaking a law the tougher the sentence - so why not for these particular crimes.