Deborah Parry and Lucile Mc Lauchlan Case PDF

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Deborah Parry and Lucile McLauchlan Case In 12 December 1996 two British nurses Deborah Parry,38, and Lucile McLauchlan,31, were arrested for the murder of their Australian colleague Yvonne Gilford, 54, who was working at King Fahd Military Medical Complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The case attracted much attention in the UK and Australia owing to the fact it would have been the first execution of a western woman by Saudi Arabia. Their trial in an Islamic religious court and the sentencing of one British nurse to eight years in prison and 500 lashes, and the possibility that another British nurse accused of murder in Saudi Arabia may be beheaded, have set off the most serious diplomatic crisis between Saudi Arabia and Britain in years.

1996 Dec 12th: Yvonne Gilford, a 55year-old Australian nurse, is found murdered in her dormitory at the King Fahd military complex in Dhahran, eastern Saudi Arabia. She was stabbed 13 times, battered with a hammer and suffocated. Dec 20th: Saudi police arrest two British nurses, Lucille McLauchlan (31), from Dundee, Scotland, and Deborah Parry (41), of Alton, Hampshire, who are alleged to have used Gilford's bank card to make a series of withdrawals totaling approximately $1,000. Dec 24th: The two women, held at a women's jail in Dammam, near Dhahran, are charged with Gilford's killing.

1997 Jan 1st: Saudi police announce that the two Britons have confessed to the murder, citing a lesbian relationship as a motive. Jan 5th: The two women retract the confessions, according to their Saudi defence lawyer, Salah al Hejailan. The women claim false confessions - centering round a furious row over a broken lesbian relationship - were forced out of them. Their defence lawyer, Salah Hejailan, has made it

a condition of the payment that Mr. Gilford repeats to the court earlier assertions that his sister was not a lesbian. The two nurses claim no such relationship existed. Mr Hejailan is also demanding that Mr Gilford joins the defence in calling for the release of all police evidence against the nurses. There is no provision for disclosure under Saudi law, but Mr Hejailan hopes a plea from the nurses and the victim's brother may result in at least the most basic information being released. Jan 6th: The interior ministry denies that the confessions were forced out of the Britons. April 2nd: The defence appeals to the victim's family in Australia to spare the lives of the two Britons if they are found guilty of murder and condemned to be beheaded under Islamic law. May 19th: Trial opens before an Islamic court in Khobar, twin city of Dhahran, in the presence of a British diplomat and lawyers for the defence and the Gilford family. The women plead not guilty. May 26th: The court appeals to the Gilford family to reach a settlement which would lift the threat of a death penalty. It orders a three-week adjournment to allow for a reconciliation. May 28th: The victim's brother, Frank Gilford, says he will not grant mercy if the British nurses are found guilty, citing the brutality of the killing. May 31st: Family members visit the nurses in Dhammam. June 23rd: The court orders a two-week adjournment and seeks to clarify the status of the Gilford family. July 7th: The three-judge panel accepts the right of Frank Gilford to decide whether to lift any death sentence, in keeping with Islamic law. The defence challenges the brother's right to demand the death sentence as the decision must be made unanimously by the family, and the ailing mother is in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer's disease. July 25th: The Foreign Office voices concern at the conditions at the prison in which the two nurses are being held.

Aug 8th: A state supreme court in Australia, on the initiative of the nurses' defence firm, places a temporary injunction on Frank Gilford calling for the death sentence. Aug 10th: The Saudi court adjourns to deliberate on a verdict. Sept 22nd: An Australian court begins a hearing to decide whether the mother is mentally competent to express an opinion on the fate of her daughter's accused killers. Sept 23rd: Lawyers for the Gilford family announce that Parry has been convicted of "intentional murder punishable by death" and that McLauchlan has been sentenced to flogging and eight years in a Saudi jail for "related offences". Legal action in Australia to stop the victim's brother calling for the death penalty is adjourned until November 24th.

1998 Parry's sentence was reduced to life imprisonment after Gilford's elder brother Frank accepted a "blood money" payment of approximately £750,000, and both sentences were eventually commuted to time served after personal intervention from King Fahd. While Parry had been saved from the death penalty, there were still many questions about the overall fairness of the trial, and in March 1998, Prime Minister Tony Blair personally appealed to King Fahd during a state visit to resolve the situation. Finally, on 20 May 1998, Fahd commuted the sentences of both women to 17 months in prison - the time that they had already served with the only conditions being that both were to write him a letter personally thanking him for his clemency, and then accept deportation back to the United Kingdom. After analysis this case, the charges, trial and sentencing in the case have fleshed out in a most dramatic way the fundamental differences between Islamic and Western civilizations, arousing ugly chauvinistic sentiments in Britain, where substantial numbers of immigrants are Muslims. The Islamic system of justice is highly secretive, and its details are little known, even inside the Arab world, where most countries have legal systems based on Western codes of justice....