1996
Dec 11th: Yvonne Gilford, a 55year-old Australian nurse, is found murdered in her dormitory at the King Fahd military complex in Dhahran, eastern Saudi Arabia. She was stabbed 13 times, battered with a hammer and suffocated.
Dec 20th: Saudi police arrest two British nurses, Lucille McLauchlan (31), from Dundee, Scotland, and Deborah Parry (41), of Alton, Hampshire, who are alleged to have used the victim's ATM card to withdraw cash at a shopping mall.
Dec 24th: The two women, held at a women's jail in Dammam, near Dhahran, are charged with Gilford's killing.
1997
Jan 1st: Saudi police announce that the two Britons have confessed to the murder, citing a lesbian relationship as a motive.
Jan 5th: The two women retract the confessions, according to their Saudi defence lawyer, Salah al Hejailan. They say the confessions were extracted under duress and through promises of air tickets home. The women also deny any lesbian relationship.
Jan 6th: The interior ministry denies that the confessions were forced out of the Britons.
April 2nd: The defence appeals to the victim's family in Australia to spare the lives of the two Britons if they are found guilty of murder and condemned to be beheaded under Islamic law.
May 19th: Trial opens before an Islamic court in Khobar, twin city of Dhahran, in the presence of a British diplomat and lawyers for the defence and the Gilford family. The women plead not guilty.
May 26th: The court appeals to the Gilford family to reach a settlement which would lift the threat of a death penalty. It orders a three-week adjournment to allow for a reconciliation.
May 28th: The victim's brother, Frank Gilford, says he will not grant mercy if the British nurses are found guilty, citing the brutality of the killing.
May 31st: Family members visit the nurses in Dhammam.
June 23rd: The court orders a two-week adjournment and seeks to clarify the status of the Gilford family.
July 7th: The three-judge panel accepts the right of Frank Gilford to decide whether to lift any death sentence, in keeping with Islamic law. The defence challenges the brother's right to demand the death sentence as the decision must be made unanimously by the family, and the ailing mother is in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
July 25th: The Foreign Office voices concern at the conditions at the prison in which the two nurses are being held.
July 26th: Families visit the nurses for a fourth time.
Aug 8th: A state supreme court in Australia, on the initiative of the nurses' defence firm, places a temporary injunction on Frank Gilford calling for the death sentence.
Aug 10th: The Saudi court adjourns to deliberate on a verdict.
Sept 22nd: An Australian court begins a hearing to decide whether the mother is mentally competent to express an opinion on the fate of her daughter's accused killers.
Sept 23rd: Lawyers for the Gilford family announce that Parry has been convicted of "intentional murder punishable by death" and that McLauchlan has been sentenced to flogging and eight years in a Saudi jail for "related offences".
Legal action in Australia to stop the victim's brother calling for the death penalty is adjourned until November 24th.