MARSEILLER, France -- A one-legged farmhand was beheaded by guillotine just before dawn today for torturing and strangling his girlfriend because she refused to become a prostitute.
Thirty officials and guards in Baumettes prison looked on as 28-year-old Hamida Djandoubi was executed after taking a last drag on a cigarette and unstrapping his artificial right leg.
Djandoubi, who was born in Tunisia, was the third person executed since President Valery Giscard d'Estaing took office in 1974. Each of the other two had murdered children under 10.