Maid sentenced to death for killing child

A Saudi court sentenced an Ethiopian housemaid for murdering the six-year-old daughter of her Saudi employer to avenge his alleged mistreatment of her.

The court in the Saudi capital Riyadh handed down the death verdict after the 26-year-old maid confessed to killing Lamis by slitting her throat with a kitchen knife.

Police arrested the maid just an hour after she killed the daughter in July and hid in the back garden of her employer’s house in Hota Bani Tamim, just south of Riyadh.

Police said in July they found the maid armed with a cleaver, which she used to attack them before they overpowered her.

Saudi newspapers on Tuesday said the maid was told by the judge she can appeal against the death sentence within 30 days.

Execution in Saudi Arabia, one of the most conservative Moslem countries, had been carried out by the sword before senior Islamic scholars approved executions by a firing squad last year.
 

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