Saudi Beheads Man for Torturing Wife to Death

Saudi Arabia on Thursday beheaded a citizen convicted of torturing his wife to death, in the first execution since the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, state media said.

Fawzi al-Khaibari had been found guilty of beating up and burning his wife with an iron before "crushing her skull" and leaving her to die, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

He was beheaded in the holy Muslim city of Medina, in the west of the Gulf country.

It was the first reported execution in the conservative kingdom since July 8, two days before the start of Ramadan which ended last week.

A total of 58 people have now been executed in Saudi Arabia since the start of the year, according to an Agence France Presse count.

In 2012, the Gulf country executed 76 people, according to a tally based on official figures. Human Rights Watch has put the number at 69.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's strict version of sharia, or Islamic law.