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U.S. | I'm a Death Row Pastor. They're Just Ordinary Folks

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In the early 1970s I was a North Carolinian, white boy from the South attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and working in East Harlem as part of a program. In my senior year, I visited men at the Bronx House of Detention. I had never been in a prison or jail, but people in East Harlem were dealing with these places and the police all the time. This experience truly turned my life around.

Saudi Arabia: man beheaded; body nailed to cross

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Saudi Arabia executed 2 murderers including a Yemeni whose body was nailed to a cross after he was convicted of killing a fellow countryman and his daughter, the interior ministry said on Monday.

Shaaban al-Nasheri was beheaded for shooting dead Dhayeh al-Manbahi after barging into his family home in the southwestern town of Jazan, the ministry said in a statement cited by the official SPA agency.

Nasheri was also found guilty of raping and killing Manbahi's daughter before shooting and wounding her sister.

Following his execution, the murderer's body was nailed to a cross in Jazan.

In the 2nd case, Saudi national Mohammed al-Zahrani was decapitated in El-Baha, in the southwest, for shooting dead compatriot Said al-Zahrani over a land dispute.

The beheadings bring to 15 the number of executions reported in the ultra-conservative Gulf monarchy this year, according to an AFP count. In 2009, there were 67 reported executions in the kingdom, compared with 102 in 2008.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery, homosexuality and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic law. In extreme cases, the convict is executed and his body crucified in public.

Source: Agence France-Presse, June 21, 2010
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