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March 13th, 2013 
David Schulberg the 3rd
The seven men – Sarhan Al Mashaikh, Saeed Al Zahrani, Ali Al Shahri, Nasser Al
Qahtani, Saeed Al Shahrani, Abdulaziz Al Amri and Ali Al Qahtani – were
charged with organising a criminal group, armed robbery and raiding and
breaking into jewellery stores in 2005, and sentenced to death in 2009.
International rights groups had protested that the men – now aged between 20
to 24 years old according to news website sabq.org – were condemned for
crimes committed when they were juveniles.
“It is a bloody day when a government executes seven people on the
grounds of ‘confessions’ obtained under torture, submitted at a trial where
they had no legal representation or recourse to appeal,” said Amnesty’s
MENA director Philip Luther.
They claimed their relatives were also “threatened with torture if they
withdrew their ‘confessions’,” said Amnesty.
They had been scheduled to die on March 5, but their executions were postponed
for a week.
Executions in Saudi Arabia, which applies a strict interpretation of Islamic
sharia law, are generally carried out by beheading but media reports said
authorities were considering using firing squads due to lack of swordsmen.
Local Al-Yawm daily reported that the kingdom has formed a specialised
committee to study the “possibility of replacing beheadings by the
sword with firing squads as this is not against sharia (Islamic law).”
This is due to “the lack of beheaders who may sometimes take long to
arrive at the execution site from other regions causing confusion,” it
said.
Also on Wednesday, authorities executed another national, Fada al-Subaie in
the southwestern Mecca region, after he was convicted of murdering a fellow
Saudi, SPA reported. It did not specify the method of his execution.
Wednesday’s executions bring to 26 the number of people put to death in Saudi
Arabia so far this year.
In 2012, the kingdom executed 76 people, according to an AFP tally based on
official figures. The US-based Human Rights Watch put the number at 69.
Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable
by death under Saudi Arabia’s strict version of sharia, or Islamic law.
Source: AFP
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