Death Penalty News: Saudi Arabia executes 8 Bangladeshi nationals
Saudi Arabian authorities beheaded 8 Bangladesh-born migrants here on Friday amidst protest by Amnesty International.
Officials at the Bangladesh embassy in Riyadh confirmed their execution. The Labour Counselor of the mission, Harun-ur-Rashid, said that the executed men were buried in Saudi Arabia.
London-based rights group Amnesty International (AI) condemned the execution in a statement. Criticizing the process of conviction, the rights body said that it might have been based only on confessions obtained under duress or deception.
Bangladesh officials said the convicts were sentenced to death for armed robbery and the murder of an Egyptian man in April 2007.
Riyadh authorities refrained from informing the Bangladesh mission. However, the Bangladeshi diplomat said the embassy will request the bodies be brought home for the mourning relatives and to observe rituals according to Muslim custom.
A letter on behalf of the president of Bangladesh was sent to the King of Saudi Arabia seeking his mercy for the convicts, the diplomat said.
Rashid said that in response to the appeal, the foreign ministry of Saudi Arabia communicated that only the family of the deceased have the right to pardon the convicts according to the Koran.
Three other Bangladeshis were sentenced to prison terms and flogging.
Most of the defendants have no defense lawyer, have insufficient fluency in Arabic to follow proceedings and in many cases are not informed of the progress of legal proceedings against them, said AI’s Middle East and North Africa director, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.
The organization added that a majority of those executed recently in Saudi Arabia were migrant workers from poor and developing countries.
The beheadings bring the number of executions in Saudi Arabia this year to at least 58, more than double than the number in 2010. Twenty of those executed in 2011 were foreign nationals, the AI press release said.
Saudi Arabia executes Bangladeshi migrants for murdering
News :: AHN
