- Execution rare punishment for member of royal family
- Saudi Arabia has executed at least 108 people this year
A Saudi prince has been executed after he was convicted of murder, a rare punishment for a member of the royal family in the conservative kingdom.
Prince Turki bin Saud bin Turki bin Saud Al Kabir was found guilty of shooting another Saudi national after a brawl. The sentence was upheld by two higher courts and carried out Tuesday after a royal order, the Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
The ministry did not give the man’s age or any other details about him.
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"The greatest thing is that the citizen can see the law being applied to everyone," Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem, a prominent Saudi lawyer and activist, said on Twitter. He described the execution as “great news!”
Saudi authorities have executed more than 108 people this year, beginning with 47 men convicted of terrorism-related crimes, according to a Human Rights Watch report released in July. There were 158 executions in 2015, it said.
One of those executed was prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, whose death in January sparked a diplomatic crisis between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Beheading of locals and foreigners has mostly been the punishment meted out to murderers, rapists, drug traffickers and armed robbers in Saudi Arabia. But it’s rare for royal family members to be punished in this manner.