Although he beheads up to seven people a day, Saudi Arabia’s leading executioner, 42-year-old Muhammad Saad Al-Beshi, says that he leads a normal life and is carrying out God’s will. Using a sword given to him as a gift by the government, Al-Beshi has performed public executions since 1998 and has since trained his son, Musaed, to also become an executioner. “An executioner’s life, of course, is not all killing. Sometimes it can be amputation of hands and legs. I use a special sharp knife, not a sword. When I cut off a hand I cut it from the joint. If it is a leg the authorities specify where it is to be taken off, so I follow that,” Al-Beshi says. Although the majority of executions are eventually carried out, Al-Beshi must first go to the victim’s family to ask forgiveness for the criminal, who may then be spared the sword. He states, “I always have that hope, until the very last minute, and I pray to God to give the criminal a new lease of life. I always keep that hope alive.” A self-described family man, Al-Beshi says that his profession does not keep him from leading a normal life among family and friends and that he sleeps very well at night. He notes, “They aren’t afraid of me when I come back from an execution. Sometimes they help me clean my sword.”
(Arab News, June 5, 2003). See “Witness to an Execution” for the perspective of those involved in U.S. executions.