TWO British nurses appeared in a Saudi court yesterday accused of murdering an Australian colleague. They were led into court in handcuffs and with iron shackles on their ankles.
Ms Deborah Parry and Ms Lucille McLauchlan arrived in a police van at Khobar Supreme Court dressed in traditional black Saudi cloaks. Hampered by the shackles, they walked slowly into the court through a side door.
Ms McLauchlan (41), from Dundee, appeared healthy and relaxed, but Ms Parry (31), from Alton, Hampshire, looked drawn as they appeared before a three judge tribunal, escorted by their lawyer, Mr Salah Hejailan, and flanked by a dozen policemen.
They have been in prison for nearly six months and face the death penalty if convicted of killing their colleague, Ms Yvonne Gilford (55).
Death sentences in Saudi Arabia usually involve public beheading by sword, but officials said yesterday death sentences on women are never carried out in public and they are not beheaded.
At yesterday's opening session the murder charges were read out in Arabic and translated into English. The two women pleaded not guilty and then followed the two hour proceedings, which were conducted in Arabic, said sources.
Ms Gilford's body was found on December 11th in her room at the King Fahd Military Medical Complex in the eastern town of Dhahran, where all three worked as nurses. She had been stabbed four times, beaten and suffocated.
Saudi authorities said Ms Parry and Ms McLauchlan confessed to the murder, but their lawyers said they did so only because they were told it would mean they would not face prosecution and could go home. They later withdrew their confessions.
Reuter adds:
Saudi Arabia yesterday beheaded five Nigerians convicted of armed robbery and an Afghan man found guilty of smuggling heroin into the kingdom, the 16th execution in the country this month.
An Interior Ministry statement said the men were publicly beheaded in the capital, Riyadh. Thirty nine people have now been executed in Saudi Arabia this year.