Saudi Arabia | Deplorable Execution Exposes Broken Promise to Halt Death Penalty for Juveniles

Reacting to the news that Saudi authorities executed Jalal Labbad on August 21, 2025 for crimes allegedly committed when he was under 18 years of age [a child], Bissan Fakih, Amnesty International’s Middle East Campaigner, said:

“Saudi Arabia’s execution of Jalal Labbad is deplorable and underscores the devastating toll of the authorities’ ruthless use of the death penalty in complete disregard of one of the most absolute prohibitions to its use. The imposition of the death penalty for crimes allegedly committed by people when they were children is prohibited under international human rights law and customary international law.

“His execution is the tragic culmination of a slew of human rights violations at the hands of the Saudi state, from his arbitrary detention, to his grossly unfair prosecution and trial. Jalal Labbad was denied access to legal representation during his pre-trial detention and told the court that he had been tortured, beaten up and electrocuted to “confess” his guilt. The court did not investigate the claims of torture and other ill-treatment. This shameful list of violations renders his execution arbitrary under international law.

“Saudi authorities must release Jalal Labbad’s body to his family without undue delay so that they may conduct a dignified burial and mourn him in accordance with their cultural and religious practices. Saudi authorities have withheld the bodies of individuals they have executed, causing immense agony and further trauma to their families.

“Following Jalal Labbad’s execution, Amnesty International is gravely concerned for the lives of other young men on death row, including Abdullah al-Derazi, for crimes that they allegedly committed when they were under 18 years of age. Al-Derazi, also a member of the country’s Shia minority, also had his sentence upheld in secret and was subjected to a slew of human rights violations. UN experts have concluded that his and other young men’s detention is arbitrary. It is past time Saudi Arabia put an end to its disgraceful use of the death penalty, which includes executing people for crimes they allegedly committed as children, and leaves families torn apart and devastated.”

Background

Jalal Labbad, born on April 3, 1995, was arrested in connection with his participation in protests in 2011 and 2012 against the treatment of Saudi Arabia’s Shi’a minority in Al-Qatif, as well as his attendance at funerals of individuals killed by security forces. On August 1, 2022, the Specialized Criminal Court convicted and sentenced him to death for alleged offences committed when he was 16 and 17 years old. An appeals court upheld Labbad’s sentence on October 4, 2022. In October 2023, Amnesty International received credible information that Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court upheld his death sentence in secret.

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The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) concluded that that the detention of Jalal Labbad, Abdullah al-Derazi, Yusuf al-Manasif, Jawad Qureiris, and Hassan al-Faraj, is arbitrary. All the young men belong to the Shi’a minority and were below 18 years of age at the time of their alleged offenses.

Jalal Labbad’s brother, Fadel Labbad, was executed in 2019. A third brother, Mohammad Labbad, was sentenced to death in October 2022. Following a retrial, he was sentenced to death again in February 2025.

The authorities have repeatedly imposed death sentences on members of the Shi’a community as they seek to silence dissent in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province. On February 25, 2025, trusted sources informed Amnesty International that Yusuf al-Manasif, Jawad Qureiris and Hassan al-Faraj were retried and once again sentenced to death with their cases now pending before the Supreme Court. Jalal Labbad and Abdullah al-Derazi were not retried at the time.

The Saudi Human Rights Commission told Amnesty International in a May 2023 letter that ‘the application of the death penalty on juveniles for ta’zir crimes has been completely abolished’. Ta’zir crimes, for which Jalal Labbad was convicted, are crimes for which the death penalty is not mandated under Islamic law.

The prohibition of the use of the death penalty against people convicted of crimes committed when they were under the age of 18 is enshrined in several instruments including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as customary international law and is considered as a peremptory norm of general international law (jus cogens).

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases and under any circumstances as a violation of the right to life and the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.

Source: Amnesty International, Staff, August 22, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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