A man beheaded his nephew, aged just fifteen months, in front of his mother in a crowded Saudi Arabian supermarket.
According to Arab News, the "well-built" 25-year-old man, of Syrian nationality, picked up a large knife from a nearby store and decapitated the infant following a family argument at around 9:30am on Sunday.
The incident, which took place in the fruit and vegetable section of the supermarket in Jeddah, on the Red Sea coast of the country, has shocked the deeply conservative nation.
It is believed the row involved his sister and his brother-in-law. "The murderer was in a dispute with the boy’s mother and her husband. He chopped off the boy's head in front of the mother to get back at her," the English-language daily paper quoted a police officer as saying, on condition of anonymity.
The mother was taken to hospital after she and an onlooker both fainted at the scene. "It happened so quickly. Before people could intervene, the man had cut more than half-way through the child’s neck," Abu Muhammad, an eyewitness, told Arab News.
Police sealed off the supermarket while forensic teams assessed the scene and gathered evidence. It reopened for business later that same day, around 1:15pm. Murder is punishable by death in the Islamic country, and the sentence is usually carried out by beheading.
Original news report here.
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