Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Official finding Islamic institutions and contexts Other Islamic authority or family context Medina, Saudi Arabia · 2011

Saudi Arabia executes Abdul Hamid al-Fakki after an undefined sorcery conviction

Record class

Institutional event

Evidence status

Official finding

Authority role

religious-police informant and arrest system, state court applying religiously grounded discretionary criminal authority, execution apparatus

Organization

Saudi religious police and judicial authorities

Spiritual nexus

A religious-police informant requested a spell and the state then used the undefined category of sorcery to arrest, convict and execute al-Fakki. The spiritual claim was the direct legal pretext for coercive state action and lethal punishment.

  • Curse or witchcraft threat
  • Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2007-03-01 · death sentence

    General Court in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Al-Fakki was sentenced to death for sorcery after an operation in which a religious-police informant asked him to produce a spell. Amnesty reported that the trial was closed, that he lacked counsel and that a confession was allegedly obtained after abuse.

  2. 2011-09-19 · execution

    Saudi Arabian execution authorities. Al-Fakki was executed by beheading in Medina. UN special procedures later cited his case when questioning Saudi Arabia about executions under the undefined sorcery offense.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • entrapment through a requested spell
  • undefined sorcery offense
  • reported coerced confession and absence of counsel
  • capital punishment

Primary record

Sources

contemporaneous human rights reporting prosecution execution and procedural allegations Amnesty International, 'Saudi Arabia executes man convicted of sorcery' (Sept. 20, 2011).

Contemporaneous reporting documents the religious-police operation, alleged coercion, closed trial, absence of counsel, death sentence, execution and the lack of a defined sorcery offense.

official un special procedures communication execution and human rights review UN special procedures, Joint Allegation Letter SAU 8/2011 (Dec. 26, 2011).

The official UN communication cites the September execution, reported absence of counsel and coerced confession, and the undefined nature of the sorcery offense as part of its review of Saudi capital proceedings.

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