CAIRO — Imagine two Saudis convicted of killing a foreigner in the United States.
If one defendant was ordered to die and the second sent to prison, igniting a public uproar in Saudi Arabia, would President Clinton respond to Saudi pressure and grant clemency to maintain harmony with an important ally?
Perhaps. But would he do so even if he knew he would be seen as soft on crime by a law-and-order-minded U.S. public, and if the victim's only relative was making repeated public calls for the death penalty?
That is roughly the dilemma that Saudi King Fahd and his advisors face in the case of two British nurses convicted in the December murder of an Australian colleague in the eastern city of Dhahran. According to statements by attorneys, one has been given the death sentence and the second is to be imprisoned for eight years and flogged 500 times.
As monarch, Fahd will have to decide whether to sign an execution order.
The case has set into motion a blizzard of outraged demands in Britain for diplomatic action to spare the nurses, culminating in an extraordinary meeting Friday in New York between British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal to discuss the issue.
If Deborah Parry, 39, a native of the south of England, is led out to a public square in a black cloak and decapitated with a single sword blow to the back of her neck--the usual Saudi procedure--it will be the first known case of a Westerner, let alone a Western woman, being put to death under the kingdom's strict interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law.
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Such an event would have shattering repercussions in Saudi Arabia's relationship with Britain, and the kingdom's desire to be seen as a civilized, modern state would undoubtedly suffer in Europe and the United States as well.
Yet Saudi authorities believe in their system and intend to stand by it. They point out that they are far from alone in the use of capital punishment, and they see beheading as a quick and humane death compared with the hanging, electrocution and poison gas used in some Western countries.
"I am very surprised to be asked to comment on a judgment that has not been rendered," the Saudi ambassador to Britain, Ghazi Algosaibi, said last week. "I was even more surprised when some saw fit to demean our Islamic justice system.
