Saudi Arabia executes US citizen Bishoy Sharif Naji Naseef after convicting him of beating and strangling his Egyptian father to death
Saudi Arabia executes US citizen Pishoy Sharif Naji Naseef after convicting him of beating and strangling his Egyptian father
- Bishoy Sharif Naji Naseef was executed in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday
- Officials there said he strangled his father and then beat him to death
- It is unclear how the execution was carried out, but decapitation is the usual method
Saudi Arabia has executed a US citizen convicted of murdering his father.
Pishoy Sharif Naji Naseef was executed in Riyadh on Wednesday, according to a statement from the Saudi interior ministry, which said he beat and then fatally strangled his Egyptian father.
The statement also alleged that Naseef used narcotics, mutilated his father’s body after the murder and attempted to kill another person before being arrested.
The ministry has not disclosed how Naseef was executed, but Saudi Arabia has often used beheading in the execution of capital punishment in the past.
A lawyer for Naseef could not be immediately identified. It was unknown whether Naseef had a home address in the United States, and other biographical details, including his age, remained unclear.
Saudi Arabia’s annual number of executions has almost doubled since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (above) and his father came to power
The US Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is seen above. Saudi Arabia has executed a US citizen convicted of murdering his father
The US State Department was unable to provide any further information or confirm Naseef’s death.
“We are aware of those reports and are monitoring the situation, but have no details,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.
He said a US consular official last visited Naseef in July.
It is unclear whether Saudi Arabia has ever executed an American citizen, but the country was responsible for the extrajudicial execution of Saudi American journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey in 2018.
According to Amnesty International statistics, Saudi Arabia ranked third among the world’s top executioners after China and Iran in 2022.
The Gulf Kingdom is often criticized for its overuse of the death penalty, which human rights groups say undermines its attempt to soften its image through a sweeping ‘Vision 2030’ social and economic reform agenda.
The annual number of executions in Saudi Arabia has almost doubled since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his father came to power, according to a report by the British human rights organization. Delay.
More than 1,000 death sentences have been carried out since bin Salman and his father King Salman came to power in 2015, the report said.
A total of 91 people – 19 of them foreigners – have been executed in Saudi Arabia so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on state media reports.
More than 1,000 death sentences have been carried out since bin Salman and his father King Salman came to power in 2015
Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, can be seen in an archive photo. Saudi Arabia on Wednesday executed a US citizen convicted of murdering his father
In March 2022, the kingdom executed 81 people on the same day, the largest known mass execution in the kingdom in its modern history.
Saudi officials at the time said those executed included members of Al Qaeda and had “followed in the footsteps of Satan.”
The mass execution killed a total of 73 Saudis, seven Yemenis and one Syrian, some of whom belonged to Al Qaeda, the Islamic State group and supporters of the Yemeni Houthi rebels.
The latest execution of a US citizen comes as Saudi Arabia pushes for stronger security guarantees from Washington DC.
Several weeks ago in Jeddah, Bin Salman met with President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, in an effort to speed up talks on a deal to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
One of the biggest Saudi demands is a new formal security commitment from the US, including ironclad guarantees of a US response to any Iranian aggression.
In recent years, Iran has stepped up its seizures of oil tankers in and around the Strait of Hormuz, the U-shaped gateway to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea that carries a fifth of the world’s oil production.
Iran has seized or attempted to seize nearly 20 international-flagged ships in the past two years, according to the US military.
Saudi Arabia and Washington’s other Gulf allies, which depend on the shipping lane to deliver their oil to world markets, have long demanded stronger security commitments from the US.