Dubai: A man who shot dead three nuns, including two Indians from the Missionaries of Charities in Yemen four years ago, was executed in the city of Hodeidah by a firing squad.

Abdullah al-Nashri, who had fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia, shot three nuns in 1999, as they left a clinic for the disabled in Hodeidah, 160 kms West of the capital Sana, Yemeni news agency 'Saba' reported on April 24.

Although police reports said al-Nashri was mentally deranged and that the shooting was a revenge killing, in 2000, a court found him guilty of murder and he was sentenced to death a year later.

Last week, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh approved the death sentence.

Sister Tilia and Sister Anetta of India and Sister Michael of the Philippines worked at the Hodeidah Institute, which cares for some 100 elderly or handicapped people and is operated by the Missionaries of Charity established by the Nobel Prize awardee Mother Teresa.

Sister Nirmala, who succeeded the Mother as the order's founder, visited Yemen after the killing. The order has a presence in Yemen since 1970 and has four chapter houses in the country with a total of 25 religious workers. The Hodeidah clinic serves more than 450 physically and mentally disabled people.

Al-Nashri was married to a Bosnian woman and had two children.

PTI