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Saudi Carries out 90th Execution of Year

2016-05-04 - 4:09 p

Bahrain Mirror (AFP): Saudi Arabia executed a citizen convicted of murder Wednesday taking to 90 the number of people the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom has put to death this year.

Mufreh al-Harissi was found guilty of stabbing to death a fellow Saudi during a dispute, the interior ministry said in a statement published by the official SPA news agency.

The sentence was carried out in the southwestern Jazan region.

Most people put to death in Saudi Arabia are beheaded with a sword.

Murder and drug trafficking cases account for the majority of death sentences, but on Jan. 2, 47 people were executed on terrorism charges in a single day.

Human rights group Amnesty International said Saudi Arabia carried out the third highest number of executions in the world last year -- at least 158.

That was far behind Pakistan with 326 and Saudi Arabia's regional rival Iran which executed at least 977 people, said Amnesty, whose figures exclude secretive China.


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