Saudi Arabia executes five on terrorism charges

DUBAI — Saudi Arabia executed five people Saturday on terrorism charges, the ministry of interior said, bringing the total number of death sentences carried out this year to 188, according to an AFP tally based on official statements.

The five Saudi nationals were convicted of “joining a foreign terrorist organization," opening fire on security forces and “providing support” for “terrorist operations inside the kingdom."

Their executions were carried out in the Eastern Province, home to most of Saudi Arabia’s Shia Muslim minority, which has long complained of marginalization in the Sunni-majority country.

Since January, the kingdom has put 15 people to death after terror convictions, most of them in the east, compared to 40 in 2025.

The NGO European Saudi Organization for Human Rights denounced the executions and said that one of the five was sentenced over acts attributed to him as a minor.

That execution “constitutes a flagrant violation” of the law, the group said, while all five sentences represent “a dangerous escalation in the use of the death penalty as a tool of repression under the guise of counter-terrorism”.

The latest executions come as Saudi Arabia faces daily missile and drone attacks from the Houthis in Yemen, where Riyadh militarily backs the internationally recognized government in its long-running civil war against the Iran-backed group.

According to Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia was the world’s third-most prolific executioner between 2022 and 2025, behind China and Iran.

The kingdom considers the death penalty necessary to maintain public order and insists it is only applied when all appeals have been exhausted.

Source: Agence France-Presse, Staff, October 18, 2026

"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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