Saudi beheads 3 murderers

Saudi Arabia on Monday beheaded three men convicted of separate murders across the kingdom, the interior ministry announced. Mubarak al-Harithi and Obaidallah al-Harithi, whose nationality was not given, were executed in Mecca province for having stabbed and shot dead a victim named as Ayedh al-Harithi, it said in a statement carried by official news agency SPA. The ministry said Majed al-Dosari was beheaded in Riyadh for having shot dead a fellow Saudi, Mehmas al-Dosari. The executions bring to 70 the number of people put to death in Saudi Arabia so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on official reports. Amnesty International says 79 people were executed in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom last year. Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under its strict version of sharia, or Islamic law.