Al-Anzi was accused of killing an 11-year-old boy and his father. He reported strangled the boy with a rope at a grocery store and then axed the father to death when he came looking for him.
Saudi officials wanted the body crucified as a warning to others. Under the Saudi tradition, the head is sewn back on the body and then mounted on a pole or tree.
A Westerner was threaten with the punishment a few years ago while being tortured and forced to confess to a bombing conspiracy, here.
The Koran in Sura 5:33 says:
5:33 Those who wage war against God and His Messenger and strive to spread corruption in the land should be punished by death, crucifixion, the amputation of an alternate hand and foot or banishment from the land: a disgrace for them in this world, and then a terrible punishment in the Hereafter . . . . (MAS Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an, Oxford UP, 2004)
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