Amnesty International has expressed serious concern about the recent execution of foreign nationals, including a Nigerian, Qorbi bin Mussa Adam, over an allegation of murdering a Saudi national.
He was the second Nigerian to be executed in Saudi Arabia this year after another Nigerian, Jamil 'Abbas Shu'ayb, was beheaded in May. In both cases, the Saudi Arabian authorities have disclosed very little information about their trials but Amnesty International said that these are likely to have been held in secret as in the case of Suliman Olufemi, another Nigerian who remains at imminent risk of execution in Saudi Arabia. He was sentenced to death in 2004.
In a bulletin received by THISDAY in Abuja, Olufemi’s trial was held in secret and conducted in arabic, which he does not understand, without adequate interpretation facilities. He had no legal representation or any legal assistance. It is feared that he was tortured while being held incommunicado in pre-trial detention to force him to “confess”.
Adam was the 51st person to be executed in Saudi Arabia this year, according to Amnesty International’s monitoring. As in previous years, the figures reflect a disproportionately high rate of executions of Africans and Asians. Of the 51 people executed so far this year, 36 were Saudi Arabians, out of a population of some 21 million, while 15 executions were of foreign nationals residing in Saudi Arabia, whose number approximately six million. In 2008, the Saudi Arabian government executed, on average, more than two people a week.
Almost half of them were foreign nationals from developing countries, including Nigeria.The government of Saudi Arabia uses the death penalty for a wide range of offences, including offences which are ill-defined or do not have lethal consequences. The process by which the death penalty is imposed and carried out is harsh, largely secretive and grossly unfair. Executions in Saudi Arabia are generally held in public, and are in some cases, followed by crucifixion of the bodies. Saudi Arabian judges have wide discretion and can hand down death sentences for vaguely-worded and non-violent offences. Some migrant workers are reported to have even been unaware that they had been sentenced to death until the very morning of their execution.
The Saudi Arabian government's continuing high use of the death penalty runs counter to the growing international trend towards abolition and the UN General Assembly's adoption in 2007 and 2008 of resolutions calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions. According to Amnesty International, 139 countries in the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

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