The Appeals Court in Makkah has ordered the execution of an Ethiopian housemaid for murdering her female employer in the Misan region, 150 km south of Taif, local media reported.

The housemaid, 18, confessed to hitting her 50-year-old employer with an ax on the back as she was saying her noon prayer. Her husband and sons were not at home at the time on that fateful day in April last year, an Arabic paper said.

Later, the maid reportedly stole SR5,000 and gold jewelry from the room of her employer and slipped into her room.

Preliminary investigation at the time of murder indicated that the motive behind the murder was theft.

In another development, Dammam police have arrested an eight-member gang involved in robbery at several pharmacies in the city, spokesman for Eastern Province police Col Ziyad Al-Ruqaiti was quoted as saying by the media.

Earlier, police received a number of reports saying the the suspects attacked staff at the pharmacies and robbed them of cash and prescription drugs.

Source: ArabNews