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SAUDI ARABIA executed two men today following a trial branded “grossly unfair” by rights group Amnesty International.
Bahrainis Jaafar Sultan and Sadeq Thamer were convicted of belonging to a militant group wanting to destabilise Saudi Arabia and neighbouring Bahrain.
A specialised criminal court sentenced the pair to death in October 2021, saying they belonged to a militant group, headed by a man wanted by the Bahraini authorities for spreading chaos and smuggling explosives to be used inside Saudi Arabia.
The Supreme Court upheld the death sentence last month, leaving only the king’s ratification before the pair were executed.
Amnesty said the two men were held incommunicado for three-and-a-half months when they were detained in May 2015.
Court documents include claims their confessions were extracted under torture while Amnesty said the men “had no access to legal representation throughout their pre-trial detention and interrogations.”
The execution took place in Saudi Arabia’s predominantly Shi’ite Eastern Province.
Bahrain did not immediately acknowledge the executions but the island nation has seen a low-level insurgency by militant groups since it cracked down on protesters during the 2011 Arab Spring.
