Saudi Arabia's executions increase in 2015

LONDON, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- Saudi Arabia is carrying out executions at the rate of one every two days, an international human rights group noted Tuesday.

London-based Amnesty International said in a report that at least 102 people were executed in Saudi Arabia in the first six months of 2015; while 90 were executed in all of 2014. It noted that juvenile offenders and the mentally disabled are among those executed, and that roughly half of the 2,208 people put to death, generally by beheading, were from foreign nations typically denied translation services at their trials and forced to sign confessions they did not understand.

Amnesty International was critical of Saudi Arabia's "deeply flawed legal proceedings' said Said Boumedouha, acting director of Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa program, in a statement, adding, "The use of the death penalty is horrendous in all circumstances, and is particularly deplorable when it is arbitrarily applied after blatantly unfair trials."

It said the kingdom lacks a criminal code, leaving definition of crimes and punishments open to interpretation by prosecutors and judges. Its strict Islamic legal code provides the death penalty to a number a crimes, including rape, murder, drug trafficking, armed robber and apostasy, the renunciation of religious belief.

Saudi Arabia, which advertised in a May on a civil service website that it sought applicants for eight new executioners, claims the death sentences follow Sharia law, and that the country has strict standards and safeguards for fair trials.