The Ministry of Inside’s assertion mentioned the crimes of these executed included homicide; pledging allegiance to overseas terrorist teams, together with the Islamic State and Al Qaeda; and touring to hitch such teams, in addition to the vaguely worded offense of “concentrating on residents within the Kingdom.”
Others had been convicted of concentrating on authorities staff and “very important financial websites,” smuggling weapons into the dominion, killing legislation enforcement officers and planting land mines that the ministry mentioned had been meant to be used towards police automobiles.
“The Kingdom will proceed to take a strict and unwavering stance towards terrorism and extremist ideologies that threaten the steadiness of your entire world,” the ministry mentioned.
The ministry mentioned the defendants had been in a position to train “their full rights beneath Saudi legislation” earlier than Saudi courts, together with the precise to an legal professional. However the European Saudi Group for Human Rights mentioned it had documented instances through which defendants had been denied entry to a lawyer, tortured and held incommunicado.
“The world ought to know by now that when Mohammed bin Salman guarantees reform, bloodshed is sure to comply with,” Soraya Bauwens, the deputy director of Reprieve, an advocacy group that tracks executions in Saudi Arabia, mentioned in an announcement on Saturday.
Noting that Western international locations had been seeking to Saudi Arabia, one of many world’s largest oil producers, to assist make up for the shortfall in oil provides as many international locations shun power from Russia due to President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, she added, “We can not present our revulsion for Putin’s atrocities by rewarding these of the crown prince.”
Rights teams mentioned the variety of executions carried out on Saturday far outstripped these put to loss of life within the kingdom’s two most up-to-date mass executions: one in 2019, through which 37 had been killed, and the opposite in 2016, when 47 had been executed.
Asmaa al-Omran contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.
