By Ayomide Otitoju
Saudi Arabia has broken its own record for executions carried out in a single year after authorities confirmed the execution of three people on Monday, according to an AFP tally.
With the latest executions, the kingdom has put 340 people to death so far this year, making it the third-highest executor worldwide, behind only China and Iran. The figure marks the second consecutive year Saudi Arabia has surpassed its previous annual execution record since rights groups began systematic documentation in the 1990s.
In a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the Interior Ministry said the three individuals were executed in the Mecca region after being convicted of murder.
AFP’s tally, based on official ministry and SPA announcements, shows that 232 of the executions recorded since the start of 2025 were linked to drug-related offences, accounting for the majority of cases this year.
Analysts have attributed the sharp rise in executions to Saudi Arabia’s intensified “war on drugs,” launched in 2023. Many of those executed were arrested in the early phase of the campaign and have since completed legal proceedings.
The kingdom resumed executions for drug-related crimes in late 2022 after suspending capital punishment for narcotics offences for nearly three years.
Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s largest economy, is a major market for captagon, an illicit stimulant previously identified by the United Nations as Syria’s largest export under former president Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted last year. Since launching the anti-drug campaign, authorities have expanded police checkpoints along highways and border crossings, seizing millions of pills and arresting dozens of suspected traffickers.
Rights groups say foreign nationals have been disproportionately affected by the crackdown. Saudi Arabia relies heavily on migrant labour across sectors including construction, domestic services, and hospitality.
The country continues to face criticism over its use of the death penalty, which activists say clashes with efforts to project a more modern and reform-oriented image under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 agenda.
“These are not violent criminals, and most are foreign nationals. Executing them is against international law, which restricts the death penalty to cases of intentional homicide,” said Harriet McCulloch of the rights group Reprieve.
Saudi authorities, however, maintain that capital punishment is necessary to preserve public order and insist it is applied only after all legal appeals have been exhausted.
Amnesty International, which began tracking executions in Saudi Arabia in 1990, has consistently ranked the kingdom as the world’s third-highest executor from 2022 through 2024, after China and Iran.
