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Saudi Arabia To Try Western Bombings Suspect Under Sharia'
CAIRO, Feb 5 (IslamOnline) - Saudi authorities said three Westerners shown on television confessing to planting bombs in two cars in the kingdom might face execution by the sword according to Islamic Law (Sharia'), a Saudi newspaper reported Monday.
In an interview with the daily Riyadh Newspaper, Interior Minister Naif bin Abdel Aziz said that Saudi Arabia will only apply Islamic Sharia' against the three suspects, and not any other legal system.
"They will be tried according to the Sharia'," Abdel Aziz said. "We don't have another law. Islamic law is the only code we have."
Saudi television showed the three men giving statements Sunday about how they planned and carried out the three bombings, which caused the death of one British national and the injury of five others.
Two of the explosions took place in November in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
The three men, a Canadian, a Briton and a Belgian, looked nervous as they confessed to the crimes. It is not yet known if others are involved in the bombings or whether they acted independently.
The three suspects described how they planted bombs and used remote control devices to detonate the explosives. They also gave details of how they located their victims and bomb choice locations.
On November 17th, Briton Christopher Rodway, 47, was killed and his wife, Jane, 50, slightly injured when their car was blown up, in what police say appeared to be a booby trap.
And another two Britons and an Irish woman were wounded, two of them slightly, when their car exploded on November 22nd in the Saudi capital.
Both the British national, Alexander Houton Mitchell, and the Belgian, Raf Skivens, work in a military hospital in Saudi Arabia. The Canadian, William Sampson, works as a marketing consultant for the Saudi Development Fund.
Abdel Aziz said that Saudi authorities arrested nine other suspects of different nationalities.
The minister declined to give details of where the suspects obtained the explosives but said he would give details in time.
"It's clear that the bombs were very sophisticated," Naif told the online edition of the Riyadh newspaper. "They must have been manufactured by professionals."
Under Sharia' law, the death sentence of a convicted murderer can be commuted if the victim's family accepts payment of "diya", or blood money.
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