Hussein Abo al-Kheir had been arrested and charged with “trafficking in amphetamine tablets» Nenov Brothers / stock.adobe.com
A Jordanian man has been executed in Saudi Arabia for drug trafficking, according to state media, with human rights activists claiming his confession was obtained under torture. Hussein Abo al-Kheir, a 50-year-old Jordanian driver, was executed on Sunday in the Tabouk region (northwest), according to the official SPA news agency.
He had been arrested and charged with “trafficking in amphetamine tablets“, she added. His execution shows “the willingness of the government of the kingdom to combat drugs, in all their forms, because of the serious harm they cause to individuals and society“, according to the same source.
Arbitrary detention and torture
In December, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called “arbitrary” the detention of Mr. Kheir, judging that she had no “legal basis“. Hussein Abo al-Kheir was tortured for 12 days before signing a document admitting he was guilty of drug trafficking, without being able to contact a lawyer, the UK-based NGO Reprieve and his sister Zeinab said in November. .
According to the latter, he was arrested in 2014 when he was hired as a driver by a family residing in Tabouk. AFP could not verify these claims and Saudi authorities could not be immediately reached. In the past two weeks, 11 people have been executed in this ultra-conservative kingdom.
In 2022, 147 convicts suffered the death penalty – more than double than in 2021 -, some of them for drug-related crimes, while a moratorium on the latter had lasted for almost three years. The execution of Abo al-Kheir comes exactly one year after the single-day execution of 81 people convicted of terrorism-related crimes. This mass execution sparked a wave of international indignation.
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