In truth, Saudi executioners are rarely short of work, thanks to the country’s strict adherence to a hardline strand of Islam called Wahhabism, whose followers adhere to puritanical beliefs that prescribe death for apostates, not to mention gays, adulterers and drug users.
Punishment is decided by judges who work without any penal code, guided only by Allah.
Traditionally, the role of executioner has been passed down through families from father to son, and it is rare for so many jobs to be created at the same time.
The new recruits will be classed as ‘religious functionaries’. Each will be given his traditional scimitar, which costs £2,600, by the government and trained by beheading live sheep provided by the civil service.
The recruitment advert, on Saudi Arabia’s civil service website, stresses that no qualifications are necessary but successful applicants must perform ‘execution orders according to Islamic Sharia rules’.
They will also be ‘responsible for implementing the Penalty of Theft by severing the hand’ — that is, public amputation for thieves who have committed up to three offences (four and they are beheaded). Right hand amputation applies in cases of theft, whereas cross amputation — right hand and left foot — is prescribed for highway robbery. Other duties may include stoning to death adulterers and surgically paralysing offenders under the strict eye-for-an-eye legal policy.
Stoning victims are typically buried up to their waist or neck, unable to fend off the stones hurled at their head by a crowd of bystanders until they slowly die. Penal amputations are carried out by the same executioners hired for beheadings, but using a knife.
Although eye-gouging is a sentence often handed down in Saudi Arabia, there are no instances recorded in the West of it being carried out in the past ten years. The upsurge in beheadings this year follows a rise in crime. Total crime rates rose more than 100 per cent between 2012 and 2013, the last year for which figures are available.
The number of sex crimes reported remains relatively low — not least because under Islamic law the rape victim is punished for ‘adultery’, with documented cases of traumatised women being lashed and jailed after being sexually assaulted.
At the same time, drug use and street robberies are becoming more widespread in a state once regarded as virtually crime-free.
Beheadings are not televised but executioners have given interviews to TV shows. One came straight from a beheading, informing his audience that ‘if the heart is compassionate, the hand fails’.
Executioner Saad al-Beshi also discussed his skills with a scimitar, stressing that it is vital to take one strong, confident swing. It is believed that cleanly beheaded prisoners suffer almost immediate unconsciousness and death. But unfortunately for Saudi’s convicted prisoners, not all Saad al-Beshi’s colleagues are as skilful.
This year, horrific footage taken by someone in the crowd was leaked showing the bungled execution of a woman accused of murdering her step-daughter. She is heard shrieking ‘I did not kill! I did not kill!’ as police officers force her to kneel in front of the executioner.
He tells her to ‘praise God’ but fails to sever her head with the first blow and has to hack twice more before the grisly deed is done.
The international outcry that ensued prompted the Saudi authorities not to amend their methods but only to hunt down the man who leaked the mobile phone footage.
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