Saudi Arabia beheads Saudi drug trafficker

25.02.2012

Saudi Arabia today beheaded a man convicted of trafficking drugs in the ultra-conservative kingdom, the interior ministry said.
Wahid Atawi, a Saudi national, had confessed that he brought a quantity of hashish into the country in a bid to sell the banned substance, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.
His beheading brings to nine the number of people executed since the beginning of the year in the kingdom, according to an AFP tally based on official reports.
Amnesty International said the kingdom executed 79 people in 2011.

Saudi Arabia applies the death penalty for a wide range of offences, including rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking