Saudi boy, 14, faces execution

Hell yeah Georgie your Human Rights,

Brian Whitaker
Saturday October 29, 2005
The Guardian


A 14-year-old boy is facing execution in Saudi Arabia after being found guilty in a flawed trial of murdering a three-year-old girl, Human Rights Watch said yesterday. The girl, Wala abd al-Badi, was found dead with multiple stab wounds in a park in the eastern city of Dammam last year.

Saudi press reports said the boy, identified only as Ahmad al-D, told police during interrogation that he killed the girl because her father had hit him and he thought she had stolen his toys.

But Human Rights Watch said: "At every stage of the investigation, detention, trial and sentencing, the Saudi authorities violated Ahmad's due process rights as well as international legal protections for children. He had no legal assistance or representation during interrogation, detention and trial. Press and police accounts also throw into question his psychological stability and his ability to participate in his own defence."

The boy told an online newspaper he confessed to the murder only after police questioned him for a third time because "my strength dwindled and I lacked the capacity to refuse