KATYA KOREN

A teenage Muslim girl was stoned to death under 'Sharia law' after taking part in a beauty contest in Ukraine.Katya Koren, 19, was found dead in a village in the Crimea region near her home. Friends said she liked wearing fashionable clothes and had come seventh in a beauty contest.Her battered body was buried in a forest and was found a week after she disappeared.

Police have opened a murder investigation and are looking into claims that three Muslim youths killed her, claiming her death was justified under Islam. One of the three - named as 16-year-old Bihal Gaziev - is under arrest and told police that Katya had 'violated the laws of Sharia'. Gaziev has said he has no regrets about her death.Stoning is a divisive subject among Muslims, with some groups interpreting it as Islamic law and others disagreeing.According to Amnesty International's annual report on death sentences worldwide, issued in April, there were no reports of judicial executions carried out by stoning in 2010. The barbaric practice was thrown into the international spotlight last year when an Iranian woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery after suffering years of abuse at the hands of her drug addict husband.Miss Ashtiani's lawyer said she was allegedly beaten and sold for sex by opium-addict Ebrahim Ghaderzade, who she is accused of killing.