Rights Group Asks Saudi King to Halt Woman’s Beheading for Witchcraft

Human Rights Watch is asking Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to halt the beheading of a woman convicted of the “absurd” charge of witchcraft.

A letter to the king says the woman, Fawza Falih, asserted in her appeal that she had been beaten by religious police, BBC News reports. Because she is illiterate, she said, she could not read the confession she made under duress and signed with a fingerprint.

Witnesses who testified against Falih said she had “bewitched” them. One man had claimed his impotence was the result of her spell.

The group says the offense of witchcraft is not defined by Saudi law and the elements of the crime are unclear.

An Associated Press story says Falih’s case highlights the problems of Saudi Arabia's Islamic legal system “in which rules of evidence are shaky, lawyers are not always present and sentences often depend on the whim of judges.”