MUSCAT, July 17 (AFP) - An Omani court Saturday sentenced an American woman to death for murdering her husband last year, a Western diplomat told AFP.
Rebecca Thompson, 43, was found guilty of killing oil worker Mark Lee Thompson in December and sentenced to death, while her 14-year-old son by a previous marriage, William Derek Green, was handed three years in prison, the diplomat said.
The son's sentence was commuted, the diplomat added, without specifying the reduced duration.
The husband was battered to death on December 30 last year and his body partly burnt.
During the trial, which concluded April 21, Thompson's wife claimed she was provoked into hitting and killing her husband with an iron bar.
The court reached its verdict on May 8, but it was kept secret and referred to the Grand Mufti, Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed al-Khalili, who had the final word on their fate.
The mufti had 60 days to look into the case and give his opinion before it could be publicised.
The mufti, who is authorised either to uphold a sentence or reduce it, reviews such cases along with the sultanate's top two legal and criminal affairs advisers.