Riyadh — A young Sri Lankan woman has been executed with a sword on Wednesday in Dawadmi, about 200 kilometers west of the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

Rizana Nafeek, convicted of killing a baby, has been beheaded despite being only 17 at the time of the crime. She was sentenced to death in 2007 after her Saudi employer accused her of strangling his four-month-old baby two years earlier after a dispute with the child's mother.

The family said she had strangled the boy, Kayed bin Nayef bin Jazyan al-Otaibi, after being asked to bottle feed him. Nafeek said the infant accidentally choked on milk.

The execution went ahead despite years of international appeals from Miss Nafeek's family and human rights groups.