A Saudi court sentenced two Asian housemaids to 10 years in jail and ordered their lashed 1,000 times each after they were found guilty of indulging in sorcery at their employers' houses in the Gulf Kingdom, a newspaper reported on Monday.
Their Saudi employers reported the two maids to the Gulf country's feared religious police, saying they had discovered that their families had been harmed because of sorcery practiced by the maids against them.
Members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice who searched the two houses in Riyadh found talismans and other magic items in the bedrooms of the two maids, Sabq Arabic language daily said.
"The court found them guilty and sentenced them to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes each," the paper said without identifying the maids or specifying the harm they caused.
Saudi Arabia, which strictly enforces Islamic law, has beheaded many persons convicted of practicing magic over the past years.
More than two million domestic servants work in Saudi Arabia, mostly from Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Africa.
