Saudi says Myanmar female child-killer executed

RIYADH - Saudi Arabia said on Monday it beheaded a Myanmar female child-killer, bringing to seven the number of death sentences carried out this year in the conservative Muslim kingdom.

After a trial, Layla bint Abdul Mutaleb Bassim was executed for killing her husband's daughter Kalthoum bint Abdul Rahman bin Ghulam Gadir, aged six, the interior ministry said, quoted by the official Saudi Press Agency.

Authorities identified Bassim - executed in the holy city of Mecca - as holding "Burmese nationality", using the former name for Myanmar, but did not specify if she was from its Rohingya Muslim community.

The child, also "Burmese", died from a beating and being raped with a broomstick, the ministry said.

The United Nations describes Rohingya as one of the world's most persecuted minorities.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar views its population of 800,000 Rohingya as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and denies them citizenship.

Myanmar's embassy in Riyadh said that without seeing her passport, it could not confirm whether or not she was a citizen of that country.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are punishable by death in Saudi Arabia, which executed 87 people last year compared to 78 in 2013, according to an AFP tally.

The kingdom had the third-highest number of recorded executions in 2013, behind Iran and Iraq, Amnesty International said in a report.