Modern day crucifixion

At noon today, local time, a man was crucified in Saudi Arabia.

In what will come as a surprise to many, crucifixion is not a punishment consigned to the history books. In Saudi Arabia today, at noon local time, Muhammed Basheer al-Ramaly was crucified for the rape and murder of young boys. The punishment was confirmed by the country's highest court in what some will see as an indictment of the West's greatest ally in the region.

Muhammed Basheer al-Ramaly was tried for and convicted of abducting young boys and raping them. He is known to have abducted five of them all under the age of 7 and after driving them out into the desert of raping them. The youngest of his victims, aged 3, was left in the desert to die.

Punishment for such vile crimes is of course merited but there are those who might think that crucifixion is a step too far. Our own Constitution, for example, outlaws cruel and unusual punishment and crucifixion is certainly cruel and quite possibly could be described as unusual.

While Saudi Arabia carries out numerous beheadings – 102 last year, according to Amnesty International, with another 138 inmates on death row – crucifixions are relatively rare. The last one appears to have been in May, when the headless body of a sex murderer was displayed in the capital.

There is one difference though between this crucifixion and the more traditional methods. Al-Ramaly was beheaded first, it being his dead and headless body which was then displayed upon the cross, as is usual in those Saudi cases where crucifixion is the punishment.