Saudi executes two men amid death penalty spike

Saudi Arabia put two men to death Saturday, bringing to six the number of executions this year, state media reported.

One of the executed men had been convicted of attempting to blow up an oil facility. The other had been convicted of forcibly committing "an obscene act of sodomy" on minors, according to the state Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

Carried out in the western Mecca region, the executions came three days after authorities in the southwestern Baha region killed four men accused of kidnapping and killing a man. 

These are the first cases of capital punishment in the kingdom in 2023. Saudi Arabia executed 147 people last year — more than twice the 2021 figure of 69, according to AFP tallies. 

Last year's number included 81 individuals convicted of terrorism-related offenses, all of whom were killed on a single day in March 2022, an event that spurred an international outcry. 

Citing the interior ministry, SPA said Saturday's executions demonstrated the government's "keenness to establish security and achieve justice" and should serve as a warning to other would-be offenders. 

The man who tried to attack the oil facility also shot and killed a member of the security forces and fired on others, SPA said, without stating when the attack took place. 

Saudi Arabia is the world's biggest of exporter of crude. 

SPA reports did not make clear how the recent executions were meted out, though the wealthy Gulf kingdom is known for beheadings.

More than 1,000 death sentences have been carried out since King Salman assumed de facto power in 2015, according to a report published earlier this year by Reprieve and the European-Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR). 

The rate has soared from an average of 70.8 executions a year from 2010 to 2014, to 129.5 a year since 2015, the report said. 

Last year saw the resumption of executions for drug crimes, ending a moratorium that lasted nearly three years. 

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the son of King Salman and Saudi Arabia's effective ruler, claimed in an interview with The Atlantic magazine that the kingdom had "got rid of" the death penalty except for cases of murder or when someone "threatens the lives of many people," according to a transcript published by state media in March 2022.