RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — An ultraconservative Muslim preacher in Saudi Arabia was sentenced to eight years in prison and 800 lashes for raping and beating his 5-year-old daughter to death, official media said Tuesday.
Fayhan al-Ghamdi, who often preached on television, was convicted of beating his daughter Lama with canes, burning her with electrical cables, crushing her skull and tearing off her nails. She was also raped repeatedly and died months later in a Saudi hospital.
The Saudi official news website Sabq reported that the hard-line Muslim preacher was not given a harsher sentence because Lama’s mother accepted 1 million riyals, roughly $267,000, from her ex-husband as “blood money,” allowed in litigation under Saudi law.
