Saudi Arabia beheaded one of its citizens by sword in Riyadh on Friday after he was convicted of killing a fellow Saudi, said the ministry of interior. Naser al-Qahtani has stabbed Hasan al-Bishi to death over a feud between them, the ministry said in the statement carried by state news agency SPA.
His execution brings to 41 the number of people beheaded in Saudi Arabia this year, according to an AFP tally based on official and human rights group reports. In June, London-based watchdog Amnesty International called on Saudi Arabia to stop applying the death penalty, saying there had been a significant rise in the number of executions in the previous six weeks. It said 15 people were executed in May alone. Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.
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