On this day, 25th March, 1975, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia had died after a gun attack in Riyadh. The king was rushed to hospital still alive and doctors massaged his heart and gave him a blood transfusion but they were unable to save him.
King Faisal was fatally wounded when his nephew Prince Faisal Ibu Musaed allegedly fired three bullets at him with a pistol at point blank range during a royal audience. According to eyewitnesses, Prince Musaed was waiting in the ante-room and talking to a Kuwaiti delegation who were waiting to meet the king. King Faisal had bent forward to kiss his nephew but Prince Musaed was reported to have pulled out a pistol and shot him under the chin and then through the ear.
One of the king’s bodyguards hit the prince with his sword, although it was still sheathed before Oil minister Sheikh Yamani is reported to have shouted to the guard not to kill the prince. Prince Faisal Ibu Musaed was seized immediately after he attacked his uncle and was questioned by Saudi police about the assassination. Doctors and psychiatrists then confirmed that they believed he was “mentally unbalanced”.
Prince Faisal bin Musaed was later found guilty of regicide and in June 1975 he was executed for the murder of his uncle King Faisal. The prince was beheaded in the public square in Riyadh as this is the traditional method of execution in Saudi Arabia under Islamic law.
UK Abolished Slave Trade
Also on 25th March 1807, King George III signed into law the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, banning trading in enslaved people. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries Parliament significantly shaped the progress and development of the transatlantic slave system. The Act of Parliament to abolish the British slave trade, passed on 25 March 1807, was the culmination of one of the first and most successful public campaigns in history.
