Drug trafficking charges: Pakistani beheaded in Saudi Arabia

RIYADH: Saudi authorities beheaded a Pakistani on Wednesday in Qatif after he was convicted of drug trafficking in the kingdom, the interior ministry announced. Jaafar Ghulam Ali was ‘arrested as he was smuggling a large amount of heroin’, said the ministry statement quoted by the official SPA news agency. His beheading brings to 71 the number of people executed in Saudi Arabia so far this year, according to official figures. In 2012, the conservative Muslim kingdom carried out 76 executions, according to a tally based on official figures. Human Rights Watch put the number at 69.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7^th, 2013.