Iraqi executed in Saudi Arabia for murder

Hafar Al-Batin, Feb 11 (IANS/AKI) An Iraqi national was put to death in Saudi Arabia for murdering a man from the United Arab Emirates, the interior ministry said.

In a statement quoted by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, the ministry said Wesam Abdulredha Hassan Al-Mahsanawi was executed in Hafr Al-Baten in the Eastern Province for shooting Mohammed bin Mubarak bin Saeed Al-Ameri dead with a machine gun and stealing his car.

A royal order was issued to execute Mahsanawi after Saudi Arabia's supreme court upheld the death sentence handed to him by an appeals court and a lower court, SPA said.

Saudi authorities have executed at least 57 people this year.

They put 47 people to death for "terrorism" on a single day in January including influential Shia cleric and political dissident Nimr al-Nimr.

Saudi Arabia executed at least 151 people between January and November last year, its highest recorded number of executions in two decades, according to Amnesty International.

Murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy are all punishable by death under the kingdom's strict Islamic legal code.

--IANS/AKI

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