Maid beheaded for triple murder

A Filipina housemaid Leonarda Akula was beheaded yesterday in Dammam for beating to death her Syrian employer, his wife and their son while they slept, the Saudi Arabian Interior Ministry announced, Agencies report from Riyadh.

The ministry also said a convicted drug smuggler was beheaded yesterday in the north-western city of Tabuk. Suwailem Salem al-Umairi al-Huwaiti, a Saudi, was caught smuggling in large quantities of hashish.

In Dhahran, a group of six Saudi Arabian intellectuals and Islamic scholars said they had formed a committee for the defence of human rights, the first in Saudi Arabia. 'We announce our readiness to take part in whatever is necessary to alleviate injustice . . . and defend the human rights decided by the Sharia (Islamic law),' they said.