Interview with an official Saudi executioner by a Lebanese television station, translated by MEMRI.
First TV host: "Do you cut off hands, or do you just do beheadings?"
Abdallah Al-Bishi: "Yes, yes. I carry out the punishment of cutting off thieves’ hands, as well as the cutting off of a hand and a leg on alternate sides, as is written in the Koran."
Second TV host: "Abdallah, when you carry out the punishment of cutting off limbs, do you anesthetize the condemned person, or is it done without anesthesia, like beheadings?"
Abdallah Al-Bishi: "With regard to the cutting off of a hand, or of both a hand and a leg, it is done with local anesthesia only."
Second TV host: "But the person who is being beheaded is definitely not anesthetized, right?"
Abdallah Al-Bishi: "No, he is not anesthetized at all."
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