Three drug traffickers beheaded in Saudi

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- Saudi Arabian authorities Monday beheaded three foreign drug traffickers in the holy city of Mecca, in the west of the kingdom.

An Interior Ministry statement said the three convicts, a Pakistani and two Thai nationals, were executed with a sword, in accordance with Islamic law.

Monday's triple executions brought to six the number of people beheaded in the kingdom since the beginning of the new year.

As many as 35 people were executed last year in Saudi Arabia, mostly smugglers. Some 52 people, including foreigners, were executed in 2003.

Executions of people convicted of murder, rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking are conducted in public, in line with Shariah, the legal code of Islam, which is applied in the conservative Muslim kingdom.