Saudi executions reach 53 in single month

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia on Monday executed a Saudi tribesman convicted of murder, the interior ministry said, raising the number of death sentences carried out by the kingdom in January to 53.

Mohammed bin Awadh al-Zahrani was convicted of stabbing to death fellow tribesman Riad bin Saeed al-Zahrani in a dispute, it said in a statement on the official SPA news agency.



He was executed in the western province of Jeddah.

Most executions in the conservative Muslim country are carried out by beheading with a sword.

Last year, Saudi Arabia executed 153 people, most of them for drug trafficking or murder, according to an AFP tally.



Amnesty International says the number of executions in Saudi Arabia in 2015 was the highest for two decades.

The kingdom practices a strict Islamic legal code under which murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy are all punishable by death.