Decapitation

From Sgt Zeno

Tue, 1 Aug 1995

From the NandO Times online newspaper:

Two Saudis beheaded for murder in kingdom

DUBAI, UAE - Two convicted Saudi murderers were beheaded Tuesday, bringing the number of executions in Saudi Arabia this year to 116, according to an unofficial count. A Saudi Interior Ministry statement, reported by Gulf news agencies, said the two were found guilty of beating a Pakistani taxi driver to death. Since July 12, 10 Saudi men have been beheaded in the kingdom, including two for raping a 12-year-old girl.

Saudi Arabia, which implements strict Sharia Islamic law, executes by the sword, and in public, rapists, murderers, drug smugglers and those convicted of violent armed robberies. Many of those beheaded this year were Asians and Africans convicted of drug smuggling. According to unofficial counts, 53 people were beheaded in Saudi Arabia in 1994 and 85 in the previous year.

ObTastelessShortStory:

This reminds me of what happened about a year-and-a-half ago. I lived in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and I got to know a lot of the locals. Actually I partied with the locals and drank their highly illegal moonshine that everybody drinks (stupid laws...nobody cares...everybody does it).

I hung out with this Filipino dude during most of my residence there. He was a cool guy, and he always knew how to get ahold of single, Filipina nurses (ha cha cha). His name was Victor (obviously a traditional Filipino name).

Every once in awhile, Joseph would hang out with us at these speakeasy parties. He was kind of a dweeb, and he never got laid. He was small and scrawny, and he had really bad breath. But he did blow a decent snot-rocket.

But one night (at the Halloween party at Al-Gazaibi's) he met a married Filipina girl whose husband was not with her. I guess the poor sot had terrible hours or something. She was butt-ugly (perfect match).

Well, that got rid of Joseph (thank Allah). He didn't attach his ass-licking personality to any more of our great exploits that he tended to ruin (more often than not).

I didn't think about him for a couple months, and Victor and I continued our good old game of Russian Roulette with Your Dick. One day Victor and I got together, and he said to me:

"Hey, dude, you'll never believe what happened. Remember Joseph? He's in jail...Evidently, old snaggletooth made it a habit of coming over to his apartment for evening plumbing work. Something went wrong one night, and she just up and died...Heart condition or something of the sort...Anyway, she died, and Joseph didn't know what the hell to do....So he put her in the closet...6 days, man...Who knows what the hell Mr. Snaggletooth had been doing all along...Anyway, Joseph gives up and calls the police and tells them that Mrs. Buttface is in the apartment, and she's dead.

"Well the cops come and instantly arrest him. [Saudi cops are more likely to shoot first, ask q's later.] They tossed him in the slammer to rot."

Well, that's how I found out that Joseph got arrested. It was about a month later when they held the trial for him. They found him guilty of adultery, hiding evidence, having a woman in the house, drinking alcohol, and generally being an infidel.

He was given the death penalty.


I talked to another friend of mine. He worked in the Ministry of Justice or some other place like that. He was a Saudi and loved Americans (a lot). He liked to touch Americans (a lot). I usually tried to avoid him, but I decided to ask him a favor.

"Mohammed," I said (because that was his name), "Someone I know just got the death penalty..."

He gave me a strange look like I was about to ask the impossible.

"No, I don't want you to free him, I want to know when they're gonna chop his head off."

He gave a sigh of relief and said, "Yes, my friend, I find out for you... I will give you a call tomorrow and let you know...and maybe you can come to my place for a party..."

I wasn't that happy about him finding out info for me, I just nodded and grinned and said "maybe" a lot....just like they do.

Anyway, the moment of truth approached. I planned it out...I took the day off, I got some Riyals out of the bank, and planned my route the night before.

I parked about five blocks from Chop Chop Square (nickname that ExPats gave the place where this was going to occur). And I walked the rest of the way.

A small crowd of people was already gathered when I arrived, and some guards were already escorting somebody out. Several Saudis looked at me and saw that I was an American and shoved me ahead of them in the square. They started shouting "Amriki! Amriki!" and everybody pushed me to the front. When I got there, I could see that two other curious Americans were already there. They looked rather stunned already, and when I looked at the riser, I saw a gleaming pool of blood. Obviously the last guy had just left.

The guards dragged their prisoner out to the square and put him on his knees. Some official read some statement aloud in Arabic (which I have only a small grasp of), the only word I understood was "inshallah" and that means "if god wills it."

They laid his arm out on the block and "THWACK" with the sword, his hand popped right off. One guy grabbed it up, and another applied a tourniquet to his arm/stump/wrist. A little blood splashed during this episode, and the guy grimaced in pain and let out a bleat like a suffocating sheep. It was obvious that the guy had been drugged before they chopped off his right hand...I guess it's merciful...and rather disappointing.

It seemed like forever before they brought the next prisoner out. Actually they brought out two prisoners. And one of them was good-old Joseph. I hope he learned his lesson about screwing ugly, married women.

They made the two guys kneel down for the punishment. The executioner approached with his big, shiny sword and stood between the two prisoners. The official read some sort of decree that probably stated that the two men you now see before you are filthy, infidel swine, we spit upon their heathen ways...blah blah blah.

At that, the official sort of looked down at me...making a weird kind of eye contact that made me extremely uneasy. To the side, I could see the executioner turn to the second prisoner who I didn't know. The death-verdict reader continued to hold his gaze with me, and I started to shake a little, and I could feel my heart pumping blood straight to my temples.

The executioner raised his sword into the sunlight, and brought it down "THWUP" not decapitating the man. In the same motion, he swung the sword down, around, and up as he turned to Joseph "THWUP" cutting into the skin on the back of his neck.

He turned to the first guy "THWUP" back to Joseph "THWUP" and "THWUP" and "THWUP" and the two head landed on the ground in front of the bodies like some sort of ritual sacrifice. Blood pumped out of their bodies rhythmically and pooled about the heads that lay motionless on the riser.

The other guy's body sort of slid to the side of the chopping block in slow motion and hit with a soft thump. Blood splashed out into the crowd. One of the Americans near me gagged and ran out of the crowd, and some of the Saudis laughed at him.

I looked back up at the official who had so disturbed me with his stare, but he was already walking quickly back to the building as four men cleaned up the mess.

As I turned and walked out of the square, all I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears. I barely noticed the locals who stared at me to see my reaction. I guess it wasn't very note-worthy, as they turned away in boredom to see what the third "Amriki" was doing.

I drove home with a different outlook on death. It's one thing to shoot enemy tanks at 3000 yards and kick around dead bodies that have been lying in the desert for a few days, and dragging airplane crash victims out of the river. But it sure is something when someone you know gets their head chopped off in front of you.

"I dig no shallow graves."