Death penalty in Saudi Arabia: What does the law say, and what happens in court?

Nearly fourfold Increase in a decade

A record 356 executions were carried out in Saudi Arabia in 2025. A year earlier, in 2024, the number was 345, then the highest in a decade. In 2018, the year after Mohammed bin Salman became crown prince, 149 people were executed. The 2024 figure was more than double that number. Compared with the 90 executions recorded in 2014, the figure had risen nearly fourfold.

In the first six months of 2025 alone, 180 people were executed in Saudi Arabia. Amnesty International warned at the time that, if the trend continued, the annual total could approach the record set in 2024.

By the end of the year, however, the figure of 356 had surpassed even that record. From January 2014 to June 2025, a total of 1,816 people were executed in Saudi Arabia. Nearly one in every three was sentenced to death solely for a drug-related offence. Human rights organisations say the actual number is higher.

In the first six months of the current year, 2026, ESOHR recorded at least 108 executions. According to the organisation, the total number of executions carried out under King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has reached 2,000. This is a record compared with any previous reign.

The final word rests with the judge

Saudi Arabia does not have a comprehensive penal code that defines all crimes and their corresponding punishments. Judges have broad discretion to determine what constitutes a crime and what punishment it warrants.

They do so based on their own interpretations of Islamic law, or Sharia, and fiqh—the understanding developed by Islamic jurists concerning the interpretation and application of Sharia provisions. Under the country’s system of governance, the Holy Quran and the Sunnah are the ultimate sources of all law.

Under Islamic law, crimes are divided into three categories: hudud, qisas and ta’zir. Punishments for the first two categories are prescribed, and they include the death penalty. Hudud refers to prescribed punishments for certain offences, including, in some circumstances, theft, adultery and drinking alcohol. Qisas applies mainly to murder or physical injury and involves retributive punishment. Under specific conditions, victims or the relatives of a deceased victim may grant forgiveness or accept compensation.

The third category, ta’zir, covers offences for which punishments are not prescribed under hudud or qisas. It includes acts that undermine public order or the interests of society. In these cases, the judge determines the punishment.

Death sentences in Saudi Arabia reflect a combination of punishments prescribed under Sharia and discretionary decisions under ta’zir. Despite being the harshest and most irreversible form of punishment, the death penalty is left to judicial discretion.

Saudi authorities say that capital punishment under ta’zir is “rarely applied”. However, statistics from human rights organisations paint a different picture.

Written laws also prescribe the death penalty for certain offences. The principal examples are the 2017 counterterrorism law and the 2005 anti-narcotics law. Under the anti-narcotics law, the death penalty is retained as the primary punishment for several offences.

Vague provisions of the counterterrorism law have also been used to sentence people to death on charges such as “endangering national unity”. For offences whose punishments are not specified in any law, judges turn to their interpretations of Sharia.

The list of offences punishable by death is also extensive. According to Amnesty International, the death penalty applies not only to murder but also to murder committed in connection with armed robbery, kidnapping or rape.

In addition, offences such as treason, rape, kidnapping, witchcraft and sorcery, robbery, torture and attempted murder may carry the death penalty. In drug-related cases, the penalty may apply to trafficking, possession, distribution and even consumption.

Under international law, however, the death penalty is permissible only for the “most serious crimes”, such as intentional murder. The Saudi government has told the relevant United Nations body that it imposes the death penalty only for the “most serious crimes”.

In February 2021, Saudi authorities announced a draft of a new law titled the Penal Code for Discretionary Sanctions, which was intended to codify ta’zir offences. After analysing a leaked draft, Amnesty International said that, rather than restricting the death penalty, the proposed law would further entrench it. Under the draft, judges would be able to impose death sentences for murder, rape and charges of “blasphemy” and “apostasy”. The draft has not yet been formally passed or brought into force.

Who appoints the judges?

The country’s highest judicial body is the Supreme Judicial Council. It has 11 members and is headed by the justice minister. The king appoints its members for renewable four-year terms. Under the 2007 Law of the Judiciary, the council oversees the work of courts and judges. The Supreme Court is responsible for reviewing verdicts involving the death penalty, amputation, stoning to death and qisas.

The law provides for judicial independence, but according to Amnesty International, judges effectively remain under the control of the executive branch. Judges are appointed by royal decree. Although the law does not explicitly state that judges must be men, all judges in the country are male.

Both the Public Prosecution and the state security forces are directly accountable to the king and the crown prince. Saudi researcher Abdullah Alaoudh says the crown prince has turned the judicial system into an instrument of his own control. To this end, he transferred prosecutorial powers—the administrative and legal authority to investigate cases on behalf of the state and bring defendants to trial—from the Interior Ministry to the royal court. He has also removed potential rivals who could exert influence over the judiciary and filled courts with loyalists.

According to Amnesty International, the authorities have been able to use the courts to punish critics of the government’s political and economic policies by exploiting judges’ broad discretionary powers and the lack of judicial independence.

Defendants’ rights do exist on paper. Under the Law of Criminal Procedure, issued by royal decree in November 2013, defendants have the right to legal assistance during both the investigation and trial stages.

Torture and other forms of ill-treatment of defendants are prohibited; limits are placed on the duration of pretrial detention; judicial review is mandatory in cases of prolonged detention; and appeals are permitted against all verdicts, including death sentences.

In practice, Amnesty International says, safeguards meeting international standards have not been consistently upheld, even in death penalty cases.

Cases involving allegations of terrorist activities and political offences are heard by the Specialised Criminal Court. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has said that this court cannot be considered an independent and impartial tribunal.

Promises on paper, a different reality

Since 2018, Saudi authorities have repeatedly pledged to reform the use of the death penalty. According to Amnesty International, each time they have either backtracked or failed to implement reforms consistent with international standards.

In an interview with The Atlantic on 3 March 2022, the crown prince said that they had abolished everything related to the death penalty except for one category. That category, he said, was set out in the Holy Quran, and there was nothing they could do about it.

The crown prince has also repeatedly given public assurances that the death penalty would be retained only for murder and abolished for offences for which Sharia does not mandate capital punishment, such as drug-related crimes. In other words, death sentences would no longer be imposed on the basis of ta’zir. Yet announcements by the Saudi Press Agency itself indicate that executions for ta’zir offences continue.

In January 2021, Saudi Arabia’s Human Rights Commission announced on social media that executions for drug-related offences had been suspended. This unofficial moratorium was lifted in 2023, after which executions resumed in cases that had previously been put on hold.

Nearly half of all death sentences based on judicial discretion

Amnesty International analysed the legal basis for death sentences announced between January 2014 and June 2025. It found that 862 executions, or 47.5 per cent, were based on ta’zir. Of these, 597 (69.3 per cent) were solely for drug-related offences, while 135 (15.7 per cent) were solely for offences related to “terrorism”.

The figures over time reveal the following pattern: from 2014 to 2018, roughly half of all death sentences were based on hudud or qisas, with the other half based on ta’zir. In 2019, the share of ta’zir cases jumped to around 71 per cent. That year, the Saudi Press Agency reported 130 executions based on ta’zir, including 84 people executed solely for drug-related offences.

The proportion of ta’zir-based executions fell between 2020 and 2023, which Amnesty International believes may partly be attributable to the moratorium on executions for drug-related offences.

In 2024, however, 40.9 per cent of executions were again carried out on the basis of ta’zir, while the legal basis for another 11.3 per cent remained unknown. That year, 122 people were executed under ta’zir solely for drug-related offences, nearly twice the figure for 2015. From January to June 2025 alone, the number stood at 118.

An expansive definition of ‘terrorism’ and the punishment of dissent

Alongside drug-related offences, “terrorism” is the second major category. According to Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia uses extremely vague definitions of “terrorism”, “terrorist offences” and “terrorist organisations” to impose death sentences even in cases that do not involve intentional killing. The aim, the organisation says, is to suppress dissent.

Using vague provisions of the 2017 counterterrorism law, judges have imposed death sentences for charges such as “endangering national unity” and “undermining public order and the security of society”. Amnesty International says that peaceful expressions of dissent, human rights advocacy and campaigning for political reform have also been treated as crimes against the state or as “terrorism”.

When anti-discrimination protests intensified in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province in 2011–2012, the authorities cracked down on people suspected of participating in or supporting the demonstrations. Many protesters were arrested, including minors. The death penalty was used as a punishment.

One of the most prominent cases in this category is that of Saud al-Faraj. The businessman was arrested in December 2019 on allegations of involvement in protests in Al-Qatif. He was sentenced to death in 2022 for participating in the 2011–2012 protests. His execution was carried out in June this year. The United Nations Working Group had previously deemed his detention unlawful and arbitrary.

ESOHR has reported that another 49 people convicted over alleged peaceful expressions of dissent are now at risk of execution. They include Sheikh Salman al-Awda and Sheikh Hassan al-Maliki. Public prosecutors have been seeking the death penalty for them since 2018, but their trials remain unresolved to this day.

This year’s figures: 83 of 108 executions not linked to murder

In 2026, of the 108 executions documented by ESOHR, 84, or 77.7 per cent, were carried out on the basis of ta’zir. By category of offence, 71 executions (65.7 per cent) were for drug-related crimes, 25 (23 per cent) for murder, nine (around 8 per cent) in political and security-related cases, and three in other cases.

In other words, 83 of the 108 executions were for offences unrelated to murder.

ESOHR also reported that, before the executions were carried out, neither the organisation nor any other organisation had been able to obtain or document information about 91 of the 108 cases (84.2 per cent).

What happens in court?

In every case documented by human rights organisations, defendants have alleged that they were subjected to torture or ill-treatment during interrogation to extract confessions, which were subsequently admitted in court as evidence against them.

According to these organisations, most death sentences and convictions in Saudi Arabia are based solely on coerced confessions. In the cases they examined or verified, allegations of torture were dismissed without any investigation.

The allegations made by Saud al-Faraj are even more disturbing. He was repeatedly tortured because he refused to sign a false confession. He was beaten so severely that he had to be hospitalised, subjected to sexual violence, and his wife was threatened with gang rape.

She was also forced to sign a statement against her husband under the threat of having their young child taken away. During his trial, he detailed the allegations of torture and submitted written complaints to the Specialised Criminal Court, the Public Prosecution, the Saudi Human Rights Commission and the crown prince himself. No investigation was initiated, and the court did not examine whether his confession was admissible.

Jalal al-Labbad was sentenced to death for participating in protests in Al-Qatif when he was a minor. He was allegedly tortured through electric shocks, suffocation and beatings, and held in prolonged solitary confinement to force him to sign false statements.

In several cases, including those of five young men sentenced to death for participating in protests during childhood, confessions extracted through torture were accepted as the sole evidence leading to conviction.

Detention in isolation, cut off from the outside world, makes it easier to extract such coerced confessions. After his arrest on 2 December 2019, Saud al-Faraj spent more than 20 months in solitary confinement, without any contact with anyone outside.

Jalal al-Labbad was held in solitary confinement for a total of nine months over two separate periods. Abdullah al-Derazi was cut off from the outside world for three months, and his family did not know where he was.

Yusuf al-Manasif’s family was unable to visit him for five months after his arrest. Jawad Qureiris had no access to either a lawyer or his family during the investigation. Hassan Zaki al-Faraj spent three months in solitary confinement, while Farhat Abu al-Saud was held in isolation for four months.

During his solitary confinement, Mohammed Labbad was beaten by several people at once with metal wires. He was kicked on various parts of his body, including his genitals, and suffocated by having a foot pressed against his throat. He was subjected to waterboarding and kept shackled at his hands and feet for prolonged periods.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture has repeatedly stated that no one should be convicted solely on the basis of a confession. According to the Working Group, coerced confessions taint the entire judicial process and seriously undermine the fundamental principles of a fair trial.

Expatriates bear a disproportionate burden

The burden of this judicial system does not fall equally on everyone. Of Saudi Arabia’s population of approximately 35.3 million, around 15.7 million are expatriates or foreign nationals, accounting for 44.4 per cent. Yet of the 122 executions carried out solely for drug-related offences in 2024, 92—or 75.4 per cent—involved foreign nationals.

In 2025, at least 188 of the 240 executions for drug-related offences involved foreign nationals. In the first half of the current year, 59 of the 108 people executed—around 54 per cent—were foreign nationals. They included citizens of 17 countries, including Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia.

In 2023, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed particular concern over the “significant increase” in executions since 2023 and called for a moratorium on the death penalty. Two UN special rapporteurs also sent a joint letter to the Saudi government expressing concern over the potentially discriminatory application of the death penalty against foreign nationals convicted of drug-related offences.

Death row prisoners awaiting execution

Conditions in Saudi prisons, particularly for prisoners sentenced to death, are especially poor. They include overcrowding, unhygienic conditions and administrative neglect, including inadequate medical care.

Before their executions, prisoners at Tabuk Prison were held in cramped, dirty cells with poor ventilation. On 18 February 2025, several prisoners began a hunger strike. They were protesting restrictions on contact with their families and degrading treatment, including being made to walk barefoot in handcuffs when being transferred for medical care.

Saudi law contains no explicit provision requiring prisoners or their families to be notified in advance of an execution, nor does it guarantee the return of the body. In practice, families may learn that a loved one is about to be executed only 24 hours beforehand. Prisoners have interpreted the transfer of foreign inmates convicted of similar offences to isolated wards as a sign that executions are imminent.

Amnesty International found that, in the cases of three people executed during the first half of 2025, their bodies were not returned to their families, and the locations of their graves were not disclosed.

Even prisoners who believe their cases are still under review have been executed. Jordanian national Hussein Abu al-Khair had been asked by Saudi prison authorities to appoint a lawyer in preparation for a retrial. Shortly afterwards, he was executed.

In June 2021, Abu al-Khair told his family that he had been informed that his “sentence had been suspended and was being reviewed by the Ministry of Interior under a royal directive, in connection with the pardon of some prisoners convicted of drug offences”. Although the sentences of several people around him were commuted, he remained in detention. In March 2023, he was executed without prior notice.

The consequences of such assurances followed by sudden executions are not limited to the prisoners themselves. The same thing happened to the four Egyptian prisoners mentioned at the beginning of this report: after being assured that the crown prince had ordered their executions suspended, they were suddenly put to death. Such false assurances cause intense psychological anguish for prisoners and their families.

Prisoners interviewed by ESOHR said they live in constant fear of execution. In recent months, they have witnessed death-row inmates being completely separated from others for a period of time, cut off from the outside world and then suddenly taken away for execution.

UN recommendations and international obligations

During a United Nations Universal Periodic Review in 2024, at least 35 recommendations were made concerning the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. Several countries called on the kingdom to move towards abolishing capital punishment by introducing a formal moratorium. Argentina recommended explicitly prohibiting the death penalty for offences committed by people under the age of 18.

Amnesty International has called on Saudi Arabia to conduct an immediate, independent and transparent investigation into discrimination in the application of the death penalty. Under the Convention against Torture, Saudi Arabia is obliged to prevent torture and ensure that confessions obtained through torture are not admitted in legal proceedings.

Yet the picture in the first six months of 2026 once again makes clear that Saudi Arabia continues to carry out executions at a rapid pace, without regard for its international obligations or publicly declared legal commitments. These include its commitments under the Convention against Torture and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Despite growing international criticism and serious concerns over unfair trials, torture, discrimination and a lack of transparency, the country appears determined to maintain its position among the world’s leading executioners.

Hussein Abu al-Khair’s sister told Amnesty International that her brother’s execution came after “nine years of torture”. He endured that suffering, as did his wife, children and the rest of his family. With his body never returned, the family had nothing with which to mourn him. After this long accounting of laws, courts and promised reforms, one question remains: in a country carrying out executions at record levels, does a person’s final news even reach their family in time?

Sources

1. World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Law of Criminal Procedure (promulgated by Royal Decree No. M/39 of 28 Rajab 1422 [16 October 2001]), Saudi Arabia.

2. Joint report by three human rights organisations—the MENA Rights Group, ALQST for Human Rights and the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR)—Death Penalty in Saudi Arabia: Joint Submission to the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, 10 March 2026.

3. Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia: “If We Had Money and a Lawyer, Maybe My Brother Would Be Alive”: Saudi Arabia’s Execution Crisis, 7 July 2025.

4. European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR), 108 Saudi Arabia: Executions in the First Half of 2026.