For a yr, Mohamed Saad’s family had no thought whether or not he was alive or lifeless. The 28-year-old Egyptian fisherman had gone out on a routine journey off the coast of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and by no means returned. Relatives looked for months with no phrase from authorities. When they lastly heard his voice, it was from a jail in Tabuk, northern Saudi Arabia, the place Saad stated he was being held on drug-smuggling fees.
On October 21 the Saudi state killed him, eight years after being detained. The family discovered of his demise via a cellmate. The official Saudi information company stated a courtroom had judged him responsible of smuggling amphetamine pills. As of now, Saudi officers nonetheless haven’t notified Saad’s family of his killing, nor advised them the place he is buried, a particular person near the family advised NCS.
Saad was one in every of tons of of individuals executed this yr in Saudi Arabia, most accused of non-lethal drug crimes, in line with a database compiled by the Berlin-based European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) and Reprieve, which displays Saudi media and speaks to households.
Many had been foreigners: Egyptian, Somali or Ethiopian migrant staff drawn by the kingdom’s financial attract and later trapped in its justice system. In 2024 the kingdom executed 345 individuals, rights teams say, double the price of the previous few years.
Since turning into its de facto chief in 2017, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, broadly identified by his initials, MBS, has sought to modernize the kingdom at a breath-taking price. Seasoned guests describe the nation as virtually unrecognizable. He has neutralized the spiritual police, abolished flogging, allowed ladies to drive, and can host soccer’s 2034 FIFA World Cup. His nation has flown in musicians and sports activities stars from throughout the globe and launched world-famous festivals.
It’s all in a bid to draw Western vacationers and capital as he embarks on an bold financial transformation plan, dubbed Vision 2030.
That plan can be excessive on his agenda when he travels to Washington DC this week, his first go to in seven years. He can be looking for American commitments to the kingdom’s economic system and protection, and a high-profile US-Saudi funding summit is ready to happen on November 19.
Few count on human rights to function prominently when the two meet. But campaigners warn that the PR drive is masking a darkish actuality again dwelling – and the crown prince’s closeness to Trump is giving him free rein.
Despite MBS saying again in 2018 that the kingdom was working on minimizing executions, Saudi Arabia continues to execute extra individuals than virtually another nation on earth, with the exception of Iran and China, observers and rights teams say.
NCS spoke with 4 sources near the households of people that have both been executed or are on demise row, facilitated by the worldwide nonprofit Reprieve, and the ESOHR, to carry their tales to gentle. The sources spoke on the situation of anonymity, citing concern of retribution in opposition to the households.
Some circumstances belie the photos of a fashionable nation – in a single, a Saudi girl and a Yemeni man had been executed after being accused of kidnapping infants to practice sorcery.
Rights teams have been sounding the alarm. At the present tempo of executions, they say, Saudi Arabia is on monitor to interrupt its document once more this yr.
Several international nationals stay in the identical Tabuk jail the place Saad was held. Among them is Essam al-Shazly, a 27-year-old Egyptian fisherman on demise row for smuggling amphetamines and 1.8g of a substance “thought to be heroin,” in line with authorized paperwork seen by NCS. An individual near the family says he wasn’t conscious of what was on the boat when boarding.
“The family had been searching for two months for him. It wasn’t until they received a phone call from him in prison they knew what happened,” the particular person stated.
In a letter to UN particular rapporteurs dated in January, the Saudi government rejected allegations of secret executions, unfair trials and the mistreatment of international prisoners. It referred to as the claims inaccurate, saying that our bodies of these executed are returned to embassies and that official notices are printed by the Saudi Press Agency.
Saudi Arabia additionally stated all capital circumstances go via three ranges of judicial assessment: trial, attraction and Supreme Court, earlier than being accredited by royal decree. It denied allegations of discrimination or torture, saying all prisoners are handled equally and that international nationals have consular entry and that the demise penalty is reserved “for the most serious crimes and in extremely limited circumstances.”
NCS has reached out to the Kingdom’s Ministry of Media for remark.
Human rights teams and sources near the defendants say prisoners should not at all times given authorized illustration and when they’re, it hardly ever modifications the end result of the case.
Accounts from Tabuk jail, relayed to NCS by individuals near these incarcerated, describe prisoners on demise row ready every morning to listen to if their identify can be referred to as, signaling their execution that day.
Further east, in Dammam, two younger Shiite males are on demise row: Hassan Zaki al-Faraj and Jawad and Abdullah Qureiris, now of their twenties. Both had been arrested and sentenced to demise for crimes dedicated as youngsters throughout the Arab Spring, rights teams and other people near their households stated.
Sources near al-Faraj’s family say police raided his dwelling in 2017, beat the males inside and detained them. He and his father stay in custody.
The ESOHR says Qureiris was accused of attending a funeral that officers categorised as an unlawful protest and spent 270 days in solitary confinement upon detention. NCS previously reported that his younger brother, Murtaja, was on demise row aged 13 on related fees and later released.
Critics say the Trump administration has chosen to prioritize commerce and weapons gross sales over human rights. In May, Riyadh and Washington introduced a $142 billion arms deal, a part of a wider $600 billion dedication for vitality, infrastructure and expertise improvement.
Trump additionally selected Riyadh for the first international go to of his first and second phrases as president, which preceded the greater than $2 trillion in wider Gulf investment pledges to the United States.
Madawi al-Rasheed, a Saudi scholar primarily based in London, advised NCS: “Saudi society has been silenced, especially with Trump’s return… Saudi Arabia thinks it has carte blanche.”
The crown prince is “a ruler who believes he can do whatever he wants,” stated Sarah Leah Whitson, director of the US-based rights group DAWN. “He enjoys (a) complete lack of accountability.”
“(The executions) are meant to instil fear and show that the consequences for behavior deemed unacceptable by the Saudi government are severe and harsh,” Whitson stated.
For prisoners like Hassan al-Faraj, Jawad Qureiris, and Essam al-Shazly, and their households, the painful wait continues. They rely the weeks between brief cellphone calls, the months between updates. All dread listening to the worst.
“It is hard to overstate how cruel and how cynical this regime is. It’s a system of lies and brutality,” stated Jeed Basyouni, head of Reprieve’s demise penalty group for the Middle East and North Africa. “The lies start at the top, with Mohammed bin Salman telling journalists he plans to reduce the use of capital punishment.”