Amnesty International slams new executions in Saudi Arabia
SANAA, Nov. 12 (YPA) – Amnesty International criticized the Saudi authorities’ execution of Pakistani citizens on Thursday on the background of crimes related to drug smuggling, describing as a “heinous attack on the right to life.”
“The lives of individuals sentenced to death for drug-related and other offenses are at risk,” said the organization, calling on the Saudi authorities to “immediately impose an official moratorium on executions with the aim of abolishing the death penalty in the country.
The organization stressed that “the authorities must review the cases of all prisoners currently under sentence of death in order to commute their sentences, or to retry them in a fair trial without resorting to the death penalty,” calling for “the harmonization of all laws and judicial practices with fair trial guarantees.”
That operation has been the first of its kind since the Saudi Human Rights Committee announced a moratorium on the country’s use of the death penalty for drug-related crimes in January 2021, according to “Amnesty International”.
On Thursday, the Saudi authorities announced in a statement that they had carried out a death sentence against Pakistani heroin smugglers in Riyadh region.
The Ministry of Interior said that the two men were arrested “when they smuggled a quantity of narcotic heroin, and the investigation resulted in accusing them of what was attributed to them,” according to the Saudi Press Agency “SPA”.
The last execution of drug smugglers was January 2020, according to a statistic prepared by Agence France-Presse based on data from the Ministry of Interior.
AA