Saudi Arabia: Imminent execution of seven youths violates kingdom’s pledge to abolish death penalty for juvenile offenders

ROME – Despite Saudi authorities pledging to end the use of the death penalty against offenders under the age of 18, seven youths are at risk of imminent execution after an appeals court upheld the conviction, complaint Amnesty International.

The case of the seven boys. The seven men sentenced to death were all under the age of 18 when they committed the crime, one was even 12 years old. All were denied legal assistance while in prison. Their death sentences were upheld by an appeals court between March 2022 and March 2023. Six of them were arrested on terrorism-related charges, the seventh for armed robbery and murder. All have suffered unfair trials tainted by confessions extracted under torture.

Amnesty International complaint. The Saudi authorities have promised to limit the use of the death penalty and have adopted a series of reforms that prohibit the execution of minors at the time of the crime. But the imminent execution of these seven boys contradicts all the promises Riyadh has made to date. Families are often not informed when the Supreme Court and the King ratify the death sentences and it happens that they learn of the execution of their loved ones directly from the media.

Execution data. Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s leading executioners. In 2022, the kingdom executed 196 people, the highest number of annual executions Amnesty International has recorded in the country in the past 30 years. This figure is three times higher than the number of executions carried out in 2021 and at least seven times higher than in 2020. In 2023, the country executed 54 people for a wide range of crimes, including murder, drug trafficking and terrorism-related offences, where terrorism often means having simply participated in demonstrations.

Legislative reforms ignored. The seven boys were all convicted of crimes for which there is no fixed penalty in the Sharia, but its definition is left to the discretion of the judges. These are the so-called ta’zir punishments. In 2018, Saudi Arabia introduced a law on minors which established a maximum sentence of ten years in prison for anyone under the age of 18 for committing a crime for which the penalty is ta’zir. A 2020 royal order also barred judges from imposing discretionary death sentences on individuals under the age of 15 when they committed a crime. In May 2023, the Saudi Commission on Human Rights confirmed in a letter to Amnesty International that the application of the death penalty for ta’zir-type crimes had been completely abolished. In November 2022, the country resumed executions for drug-related crimes, ending a moratorium on drug-related crimes that had been in place since January 2020.

Unfair trials. Six of the seven youths currently at risk of execution were convicted on terrorism charges, including for taking part in anti-government protests or for attending the funerals of those killed by security forces during demonstrations. Six of the seven convicted belong to the Shia minority, which routinely faces discrimination in the country, including irregular and unfair trials. Yousef al-Manasif, for example, was aged between 15 and 18 at the time of the alleged crime and was sentenced to death by a specialized criminal court in November 2022. The sentence, which Amnesty International has reviewed, argues that al-Manasif ” it has participated in sit-ins and protests that endanger the cohesion and security of the state”. His family said he was unable to see him for more than six months after his arrest, partly because the boy was held in solitary confinement. The appeals court upheld his conviction in March 2023.

Processes without lawyers. Another defendant, Abdullah al-Darazi, was 17 at the time of the alleged offence. He was convicted “of participating in riots in al-Qatif, chanting anti-state slogans, causing chaos and attacking security officials with petrol bombs.” He told the court he had been held in pre-trial detention for three years and not having been able to consult a lawyer during the investigation and incarceration. Amnesty International, who consulted trial documents, examined statements in which al-Darazi asked the judge for an independent medical evaluation to prove the torture he had been subjected to. The court ignored his requests and in August 2022 upheld the death sentence.

The number of executions is higher than the official one. In the same letter to Amnesty International in May, the Saudi Commission on Human Rights revealed that 196 people were executed in 2022. This is a much higher number than the 148, which are the official executions reported by the Saudi news agency and recorded by Amnesty itself in 2022.