Saudi Arabia has executed a total of another 144 people this year, officials say.
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Saudi Arabia has executed another 17 people accused of smuggling and drug offences in the past 12 days, a senior UN official said on Tuesday, confirming a record for the kingdom’s total number of death sentences in one year.
The most recent executions, carried out since Nov. 10, are “deeply regrettable,” U. N. human rights spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell told a briefing in Geneva.
The wave of executions in the Islamic kingdom comes after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic that has also halted death sentences in countries.
Saudi Arabia carries out maximum executions through beheading.
At 144, the total number of beheadings in 2022 exceeded the cumulative number of those sentences imposed in 2020 and 2021 combined, which is less than 140.
Of these, another 81 people were killed in a mass execution by the government in March this year for homicide and club in militant teams, marking the largest such exercise in the kingdom’s fashion history.
Although Mohammed bin Salman’s regime has tried to liberalize facets of life in the country by opening cinemas, extending the coveted right to drive to women and denigrating the country’s feared and devoted police, the number of executions will be alarming.
U. S. intelligence agencies are not allowed to do so. The U. S. has accused the crown prince of ordering the killing and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was a fierce critic of the kingdom’s regime. However, Biden’s management has said the crown prince will be granted immunity.
Prince Mohammed had said in the past that executions were reserved for those convicted of murder or manslaughter punishable by death.
A “high percentage” of executions were stopped thanks to the payment of so-called “blood money” to bereaved families, he told The Atlantic.
“Well, on the death penalty, we got rid of all that, for a category, and that’s written in the Koran, and we can’t do anything about it, even if we seek to do something, because it’s transparent. “train in the Koran,” he told the magazine.
“If someone has killed someone, another person, the circle of relatives of that person has the right, after going to court, to apply the death penalty, unless they pardon. Or if someone threatens the lives of many people, it means they will be punished with the death penalty,” he said, according to a transcript later published by Saudi news channel Al-Arabiya.
He added: “It doesn’t matter if I like it or not, I don’t have the strength to replace it. “
Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman had said executions in Saudi Arabia would only be reserved for those convicted of manslaughter or manslaughter.
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