DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia on Saturday executed 81 people convicted of crimes ranging from murder to paramilitary affiliation, in the largest known mass execution carried out in the kingdom in its modern history.
The number of executions exceeded even that of the January 1980 mass execution for the 63 militants convicted of capturing the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979, the worst militant attack on the kingdom and Islam’s holiest site.
It was unclear why the kingdom chose Saturday for the executions, even though they took place as world attention remained focused on Russia’s war with Ukraine, and the US hopes to lower record high gasoline prices as energy prices rise globally. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is also planning a trip to Saudi Arabia next week due to oil prices.
The number of death sentences carried out in Saudi Arabia has declined during the coronavirus pandemic, although the kingdom has continued to behead convicts under King Salman and his assertive son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Saudi Arabia’s state press agency announced Saturday’s executions, saying they included “those convicted of various crimes, including the murder of innocent men, women and children.”
The Kingdom also said some of those executed were members of al-Qaeda, the Islamic State group, and patrons of Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The Saudi-led coalition has been fighting the Iranian-backed Houthis in neighboring Yemen since 2015 in an attempt to bring back an internationally recognized government.
Among those executed were 73 Saudis, seven Yemenis and one Syrian. The report does not say where the executions took place.
“The accused were given the right to a lawyer and were guaranteed their full rights under Saudi Arabian law during a trial that found them guilty of numerous heinous crimes that resulted in the death of a large number of civilians and law enforcement officers. authorities,” Saudi Arabia said in a statement. This is reported by the Press Agency.
“The Kingdom will continue to take a strict and unwavering stance against terrorism and extremist ideologies that threaten the stability of the entire world,” the report says. It does not say how the prisoners were executed, although those on death row in Saudi Arabia are usually beheaded.
Saudi Arabian state television said in a statement that those executed “followed in the footsteps of Satan” in committing their crimes.
The executions drew immediate international criticism.
“The world should already know that when Mohammed bin Salman promises reform, bloodshed is sure to follow,” said Soraya Bauwens, deputy director of Reprieve, a London-based human rights group.
The last mass execution in the kingdom took place in January 2016, when 47 people were executed in the kingdom, including a prominent opposition Shiite cleric who had organized demonstrations in the kingdom.
In 2019, the kingdom beheaded 37 Saudi nationals, most of them Shiites, in a nationwide mass execution for alleged terrorism-related crimes.
The capture of the Grand Mosque in 1979 remains a defining moment in the history of the oil-rich kingdom.
A group of ultra-conservative Sunni Saudi militants have taken over the Grand Mosque, home to the cubic Kaaba, in front of which Muslims pray five times a day, demanding the abdication of the Al Saud royal family. The two-week siege that followed ended with an official death toll of 229. The kingdom’s rulers soon embraced even more Wahhabism, an ultra-conservative Islamic doctrine.
Since coming to power, Crown Prince Mohammed, under his father, has increasingly liberalized life in the kingdom, opening movie theaters, allowing women to drive and destroying the country’s once fearsome religious police.
However, US intelligence agencies believe the crown prince also ordered the killing and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi while overseeing airstrikes in Yemen that killed hundreds of civilians.
In excerpts from an interview with The Atlantic, the crown prince discussed the death penalty, saying that a “large percentage” of executions were stopped by paying so-called “blood money” to grieving families.
“Well, about the death penalty, we got rid of everything except one category, and this one is written in the Koran, and there is nothing we can do about it, even if we wanted to do something, because this is a clear teaching in the Koran,” said prince, according to a transcript later published by the Saudi satellite news channel Al Arabiya.
“If someone killed someone, another person, the family of this person has the right, after going to court, to apply the death penalty if they do not forgive him. Or if someone threatens the lives of many people, then he should be punished with the death penalty.”
He added, “Whether I like it or not, I can’t change it.”
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