Saudi Arabia said it had executed eight Bangladeshis in Riyadh on Friday on charges of an armed robbery and killing, said a statement released by the Saudi interior ministry.
The migrant workers, who were beheaded in public, were sentenced to death for killing an Egyptian in April 2007, a senior official at the Bangladesh embassy in Riyadh said.
Human rights group Amnesty International criticised the incident, saying that 'multiple executions are deeply disturbing.'
The Bangladeshis executed in Riyadh were Mamun, son of Abdul Menan of the Tangail district headquarters, Mohammed Sumon, son of Abdul Hye, and Masud, son of Shamsul Haque, of Kalihati in Tangail, Shafiq al-Islam, son of Khowaz Uddin of Sakhipur in Tangali, Abu Hussain, son of Ahmed Biswas, and Motair Rahman, son of Shahid Khan, of Faridpur, Faruq, son of Jamaluddin of Daudkandi in Comilla, and Sumon Miah, son of Milan Miah of Pakundia in Kishoreganj, according to the Bangladesh mission in Riyadh.
Three other Bangladeshis were imprisoned for varying terms and sentenced with flogging.
The Bangladeshis wounded Egyptian Saeed Mohammed Abdulkhaleq, a guard of a building complex who later died, when they were reportedly stealing electric cables.
The accused gave confessional statements in the court on their involvement in the incident, SM Haroon-or-Rashid, counsellor of the labour wing of the Bangladesh embassy in Riyadh, said.
The Saudi Arabia government did not inform the embassy of the matter before executing the order of a criminal court, which was supported by the court of cassation and the supreme judicial council and approved by the king of the country.
Asked whether the people executed had received quality legal support, he said that they embassy had provided them with all legal support.
Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz also rejected a request of the Bangladesh president, Zillur Rahman, for mercy to the convicted on humanitarian grounds keeping in consideration the state of poor families dependent on the eight convicts.
The Saudi foreign ministry informed the embassy that the state, the king in this case, does not grant clemency to people convicted for
killing and spreading reign of terror, he said.
According to the Saudi law, only the family of the victim can grant mercy to the people responsible for killing, the Saudi foreign ministry said.
'We contacted the relatives of the guard who was killed through the Egyptian embassy in Saudi Arabia but they were adamant about not granting pardon, even in exchange for blood money,' the counsellor said.
According to Saudi rules, the beheaded people are buried locally under the management of the Saudi police. 'We are, however, trying to get the bodies so that they could be sent to their families in Bangladesh,' the official added.
Two other Saudi citizens were executed in the northern city of Tabuk, taking the total number of executions on Friday to 10.
The Amnesty International's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui said, 'Court proceedings in Saudi Arabia fall far short of international standards for fair trial and news of these recent multiple executions is deeply disturbing,', the organisation said in a release.
'The Saudi authorities appear to have increased the number of executions in recent months, a move that puts the country at odds with the worldwide trend against the death penalty,' she said.
Saudi Arabia applies the death penalty to a wide range of offences.
The beheadings bring the number of executions in Saudi Arabia this year to at least 58, more than double the 2010 figure. Twenty of the people executed in 2011 were foreign nationals, mostly migrant workers from poor and developing countries.
The Amnesty International said that defendants often have no defence lawyer and are unable to follow court proceedings in Arabic. They are also rarely allowed formal representation by a lawyer, and in many cases are not informed of the progress of legal proceedings against them.
They, and many of the Saudi Arabians who are executed, also have no access to influential figures such as government authorities or heads of tribes, nor to money, both crucial factors in paying blood money or securing a pardon in murder cases.
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