Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah, on Sept. 24, 2022. (Credit: Bandar al-Jaloud/AFP)
Saudi Arabia on Monday executed five people, state media said. It was the biggest group execution this year.
The five men, four Saudi and one Egyptian, were tried for carrying out an attack that killed five people in the east of the Kingdom, were oil is present in the highest concentration and most of the country's Shiite's live.
An interior ministry statement published by the official Saudi Press Agency did not specify when the attack took place or what type of house of worship was targeted.
More than 20 executions have been carried out since early May for terrorism-related offences, the vast majority in the eastern province.
In late May, authorities executed two Bahrainis convicted of terrorism in a case that Amnesty International said involved "torture-tainted confessions."
Last year, Saudi Arabia executed 147 people in total, far surpassing the 2021 figure of 69, an AFP tally showed.
The figure for 2022 included 81 people executed on a single day in March on terrorism-related charges, an event that sparked an international outcry.
More than 1,000 death sentences have been implemented since King Salman assumed power in 2015, according to a report published earlier this year by Reprieve and the European-Saudi Organization for Human Rights.
The recent surge in executions comes with the Kingdom's attempts to soften its image as part of its "Vision 2030" reform agenda.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, King Salman's son and Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, said in an interview with The Atlantic 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.
Saudi Arabia on Monday executed five people, state media said. It was the biggest group execution this year. The five men, four Saudi and one Egyptian, were tried for carrying out an attack that killed five people in the east of the Kingdom, were oil is present in the highest concentration and most of the country's Shiite's live.
An interior...