Saudi Arabia executes 198 people in 2024, highest toll in over 30 years: AFP report

Saudi Arabia has carried out its highest number of executions in more than three decades after three executions announced Saturday took the 2024 figure to 198, according to an AFP tally.

The Gulf monarchy executed the third highest number of prisoners in the world after China and Iran in 2023, according to Amnesty International.

The latest tally surpassed its previous highs of 196 in 2022 and 192 in 1995, according to the London-based human rights group, which began recording the annual data in 1990.

The country's official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) announced the deaths of the three prisoners citing a statement from the interior ministry.

The 198 executions this year compare with 170 in 2023, according to tallies compiled by AFP from official media reports.

The oil-rich kingdom has faced persistent criticism over its use of the death penalty, which human rights groups have condemned as excessive and out of step with Saudi efforts to present a modern image on the international stage.

  Promises reversed 

 Jeed Basyouni, the head of Middle East anti-death penalty advocacy for the NGO Reprieve, said the new record showed "Saudi Arabia has given up the pretence around reforms on the use of death penalty".

"Promises made in recent years haven't materialised or have even been reversed," he added.

Those put to death this year included 32 people convicted of terrorism-related offences and 52 found guilty of drug-related offences, according to the tally compiled by AFP.

The previous record of 196 executions in 2022 recorded by Amnesty International, was revealed in a letter from the Saudi human rights commission. AFP counted 147 that year.

Although figures before 1990 are unclear, the Washington Post reported that 63 people were beheaded in 1980 after the previous year's seizure by Islamist militants of Islam's holiest place, the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

Saudi Arabia’s largest mass execution was in March 2022, when 81 people were put to death in a single day.

Riyadh has previously said that the death penalty is necessary to "maintain public order" and sentences are only carried out if "the defendants have exhausted all levels of litigation".

The persistently high number of executions contradicts statements by Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who told The Atlantic in 2022 that the kingdom had eliminated the death penalty with the exception of murder cases or when an individual posed a threat to many lives.

  'Sharp increase'  

Basyouni said Western public pressure on Saudi Arabia had "decreased significantly in the last year" with the kingdom now feeling "free to behave anyway it wants".

Duaa Dhaini, a researcher at the Berlin-based European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights, said it was hard to discern the "real motivation" behind the increase in executions.

She said the sentences may be used to empty Saudi prisons or "send a message of intimidation and force", whether "against lawbreakers or even political opponents".

The new record number comes amid a sharp increase in death sentences carried out against drug offenders this year.

The kingdom ended a three-year moratorium on the execution of drug offenders at the end of 2022, putting 19 to death in a month.

In 2022, the United Nations said that imposing the death penalty for drug crimes "contradicts international norms and standards", calling on the Saudi authorities to "halt the implementation of death sentences for drug crimes".

In September, 31 Arab and international human rights organisations issued a joint statement condemning the "sharp increase" in executions in Saudi Arabia, against drug offenders in particular.