Saudi Arabia

Laws and the Death Penalty

Saudi Arabia has no written penal code. The death penalty is available to judges in cases of apostasy and other offenses against God, offenses against persons as defined by Shari'a law, and offenses that in the judge's discretion deserve the death penalty, even those not ordinarily death penalty offenses.

Human Rights Watch recommended in 2008 that Saudi Arabia write its penal code and establish a public defender program.

Saudi Arabia is one of nine countries that actually execute drug offenders, although 34 worldwide, including the United States, have a death penalty provision. Executions are by public beheading and are widely publicized. In 1995 Saudi Arabia executed four Turks for trafficking and effectively ended smuggling of Captagon tablets from Turkey into Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia executed between 38 and 90 people each year between 2000 and 2009. Amnesty International reported that 26 of the 50 executions in 2004 were for drug violations, and 33 drug executions took place in 2005. In 2007 executions exceeded 117 for two-thirds of the year, topping the 113 record for 2000, the previous high. The total was around 1,750 between 1985 and 2008.

In 2010 Saudi Arabia's appointed Shura Council, the advisory council to the ruler, instituted a public defender program, raising hopes that the legal system would become one of law rather than a judge's opinion. Saudi Arabia was noted for rights violations including warrantless arrests, abuse during interrogation, holding of suspects incommunicado, no-notice trials and verdicts, and the like. Judges were noted for intimidating suspects into not hiring lawyers and, sometimes, barring lawyers from the courtroom. The Shura Council also maintained the requirement for a unanimous vote of the five-judge appeals panel to sustain discretionary death sentences.

International Cooperation

The Ministry of Interior has offices in 40 countries where trafficking might originate. In 1996 Saudi Arabia signed bilateral agreements on drug enforcement, and the country leads the effort to upgrade intelligence sharing in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council. Saudi Arabia is a member of the United Nations (UN) Office on Drugs and Crime and sends personnel to training and international forums.

As of 1998 Saudi Arabia was signatory to the 1988 UN Convention and regarded drug trafficking and abuse as high priority concerns. In the mid-1990s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) visits to the region went into decline and in 1996 the [Page 712]United States and Saudi Arabia explored resumption of those visits, possibly quarterly as was the norm prior to 1991. Both agreed that the visits were a good review of the state of Saudi efforts.

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