British nurses face execution if found guilty

Saudi Court Considers Verdict in British Nurses Trial

Deborah Parry and Lucille McLaughlan deny murdering their Australian colleague, Yvonne Gilford. Her body was found at the medical complex where all three women worked in the Saudi city of Dhahran. She had been stabbed 13 times, beaten and suffocated.

Recent developments in the case have centred on the murder victim's family, which, under Saudi law, has the right to demand the death penalty in the event of a guilty verdict. However family members must be unanimous in asking for execution, and defence lawyers for the accused presented the court with new evidence concerning the mental competence of the victim's mother, Mrs Muriel Gilford.

On Friday, an Australian court ordered the victim's brother, Frank Gilford, to refrain from calling for the nurses' execution until the issue of his mother's mental competence is cleared.

Yvonne Gilford was stabbed, beaten and suffocated

The defence lawyers have submitted evidence which they believe undermines the prosecution case. Ms Parry and Ms McLaughlan have withdrawn confessions they made earlier, saying they had been physically and psychologically pressured into making them.

If the panel of the three Saudi judges decides there's doubt about the validity of the confessions, the case could be dismissed altogether. But if the judges accept the confessions at face value, it would be hard to avoid a verdict of guilty.

More than 70 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia this year.