'Cruel torture': Drug convicts await execution in Saudi

The two Egyptian inmates ate a routine final dinner in a prison in northern Saudi Arabia, not knowing they would be put to death for drug crimes the next morning.

Their abrupt killing this month extended a recent spree of drug-related executions in Saudi Arabia, after officials ended a moratorium on the death penalty for such crimes less than two years ago.

The cases have spurred outcry from human rights groups and spread fear in Tabuk prison, near the Jordanian border, where inmates told AFP more than 50 defendants have been sentenced to die over drug smuggling and worry their executions could come at any moment.

"We don't know whose turn it is. Maybe it's me or my closest friend," said Mohammed, a 40-year-old Egyptian who ran a hotel in Riyadh before his arrest in 2015 for receiving a shipment of furniture that turned out to be stuffed with drugs.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cruel-torture-drug-convicts-await-112735966.html