Four convicts executed despite global outcry
Saudi Arabia has executed four more prisoners amid an international outcry condemning the high number of executions in the country.
The Saudi Interior Ministry said on Wednesday that three citizens convicted of murder and a Syrian convicted of drug smuggling had been executed.
This brings the number of executions so far this year in Saudi Arabia to 127, showing a 70-percent rise compared to the entire 2014, according to AFP tallies.
Amnesty call for moratorium
The four executions took place a day after Amnesty International urged a moratorium on the executions in the Saudi kingdom.
On Tuesday, the London-based rights group released a report dubbed “Killing In the Name of Justice: The Death Penalty in Saudi Arabia.”
The 43-page report criticized Saudi Arabia’s “judicial system,” claiming it was below “international standards …. [with its flawed] criminal code leaving definitions of crimes and punishments vague and widely open to interpretation.”
The Saudi kingdom executed a total of 26 people last August in a sudden rise in executions, a trend that Amnesty says is growing.
“Saudi Arabia’s faulty justice system facilitates judicial executions on a mass scale,” said Amnesty’s acting director of the Middle East and North African program, Said Boumedouha.
Under Saudi Arabia’s strict legal practices, murder, armed robbery, rape, drug trafficking and apostasy are all punishable by death, which is mostly carried out by beheading.
Amnesty says Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s most prolific executioners.
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