RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Seven Saudi men convicted of theft, looting and armed robbery were executed on Wednesday, according to the country's official news agency, more than a week after their families and a rights group appealed to the king for clemency.

The executions took place in Abha, a city in the southern region of Asir, the Saudi Press Agency said. A resident who witnessed the execution said the seven were shot dead by a firing squad, a first in the kingdom, which traditionally has beheaded convicts sentenced to death.

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The witness spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution.

Amnesty International called the executions an "act of sheer brutality."

"We are outraged by the execution of seven men in Saudi Arabia this morning. We oppose the death penalty in all circumstances, but this case has been particularly shocking," said Philip Luther, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa director.

"It is a bloody day when a government executes seven people on the grounds of 'confessions' obtained under torture, submitted at a trial where they had no legal representation or recourse to appeal," Luther said.

The south has been marginalized and suffered discrimination by the powerful central region where the capital, Riyadh, and the holy shrines of Mecca and Medina are located.

The seven were arrested in 2006 and received death sentences in 2009, a Saudi newspaper reported at the time. The case was back in focus after Human Rights Watch earlier this month called for the sentences to be canceled because the men were juveniles at the time of their arrest.

Torture claims
One of the men told The Associated Press in early March that he was only 15 when he was arrested as part of a ring that stole jewelry in 2004 and 2005. Nasser al-Qahtani said he was tortured to confess and had no access to lawyers.

Al-Qahtani said that during the years-long trial, he only faced the judge three times and when the men tried to complain to the judge about the torture or show torture marks on their bodies, they were ignored. He also said the judge never assigned him a lawyer.

The original sentences called for death by firing squad and crucifixion.

The oil-rich kingdom follows a strict implementation of Islamic law, or Shariah, under which people convicted of murder, rape or armed robbery can be executed, usually by sword.

On Sunday, a Saudi paper reported that the government is looking into formally dropping public beheadings as a method of execution and instead considering death by a firing squad as an alternative. There have also been calls in the kingdom to replace public beheadings with lethal injections carried out in prisons.

Local observers said there are fewer people willing to carry out beheadings.

Saudi Arabia has executed 23 people so far this year, including the seven men on Wednesday. Last year it executed 76 people and in 2011, 79.

'Strong evidence' that trial was not fair
Also, several people were reported crucified in Saudi Arabia last year. Human rights groups have condemned crucifixions, including cases in which people were beheaded and then crucified. In 2009, Amnesty International condemned such executions as "the ultimate form of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment."

On March 4, Human Rights Watch appealed to King Abdullah not to execute the seven men and said there was "strong evidence" that they did not get a fair trial.

"It is high time for the Saudis to stop executing child offenders and start observing their obligations under international human rights law," said Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East director at HRW.

The following day, the king ordered a one-week suspension until the case was reviewed.

The Washington-based Institute of Gulf Affairs, which campaigned for the suspension of the executions of the seven men, recently said in a note to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights that one of the reasons the seven were sentenced to death was that "they hail from the south, a region that is heavily marginalized by the Saudi monarchy, which views them as lower class citizens."

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — A Pakistani soldier was publicly stoned to death on the order of a tribal court in the country's northwestern Kurram region for having a relationship with a local woman, government officials and tribesmen said Wednesday.

Such tribal justice is a stark reminder of the difficulty in establishing a credible civilian administration in Pakistan's semi-autonomous region bordering Afghanistan, despite a series of military operations in the area and Western nations pouring in millions of dollars to help build infrastructure.

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Punjab native Anwar Din, 27, was posted last year to the Parachinar area of Kurram agency where he met Intizar Bibi, 19, while manning a checkpost near her home.

The two embarked on a romantic relationship, tribal sources said, and he tried to elope with her when he was later posted to the disputed Kashmir region. It was not immediately clear what evidence there was, if any, of a romance.

"The girl left her home on Monday and met Anwar Din when villagers saw them," said Munir Hussain, the head of the local jirga, or tribal court, that sentenced Din to death. "We took the girl into custody and took the boy to the local graveyard where he was stoned to death and buried."

Din was killed on Monday, he added. A government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the jirga had ruled the woman must be shot to death. It was not immediately clear if this had already taken place.

The army was not immediately available for comment.

Kurram, the only part of Pakistan's largely lawless border region that has a significant Shiite population, is racked by sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite tribes. Anti-Shiite ideology from the Taliban and al Qaeda has meant years of bloody fighting.

Bibi is Shiite while Din was Sunni, Hussain added.

Tribal justice
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas have never been fully integrated into Pakistan's administrative, economic or judicial system.

Instead, families and tribes often take justice into their own hands, presiding over "jirgas" or "panchayats," gatherings of elders who hand down punishments including rape, killing and the bartering of women to settle scores and restore honor.

In such tribal justice, women often fare far worse than men.

Hussain said that the jirga had also requested that another Pakistani soldier, Saif Ullah, be handed over for helping the couple meet and coordinate the planned elopement.

"The army is here for our security but if they engage in such activities we will not let them stay here," Hussain said. "This is an insult to tribal customs. We will revolt against this."

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Iran carried out death sentences on at least 360 people in 2011, up by more than 40 percent on the year before, according to a report published Tuesday by Amnesty International.

The report noted increases in other Mideast countries including Saudi Arabia, where at least 82 people were executed in 2011, for crimes including “sorcery,” an Amnesty statement said. That figure was up from at least 27 in 2010.

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Iran’s total, which was up from at least 252 people in 2010, included at least three juvenile offenders “in violation of international law,” Amnesty said. There were another four unconfirmed executions of juveniles in Iran, it added.

Read the full Amnesty International report

The group said it had received “credible reports” that there were a large number of unacknowledged executions in Iran, which would “almost double the number of ‘official’ ones there.”

Among those executed in Iran were people convicted of offenses such as adultery and sodomy.

Thousands thought killed in China
Amnesty said that in total 20 countries carried out at least 676 executions in 2011, compared to 23 countries and 527 judicial killings the year before.

But it said the figures did not include “thousands of prisoners thought to have been executed in China.”

The statement said most countries “either hanged or shot their condemned prisoners, but there were also beheadings in Saudi Arabia and lethal injections in China, Taiwan and the USA.”

The group said 68 people were executed in Iraq, 43 in the United States, at least 41 in Yemen, 30 in North Korea, and 10 in Somalia.

Overall, at least 18,750 people were under sentence of death worldwide at the end of 2011, the statement added.

BEIJING – "I went to see your brother and sisters. They all know that you are leaving this world. But, sorry, they didn’t want to see you."

"I don’t want to see them either. Let me die," the man said, wiping his teary eyes. Two policemen stood behind him while a microphone was pointed at him.

"Is there anything you want me to tell your brother and sisters?"

"No. I did something wrong. I killed my mother. "

This exchange was a conversation between TV hostess Ding Yu and Bao Rongting, a convicted murderer, just a few hours before he was executed on Nov. 20, 2008. It was broadcast on "Interviews Before Execution," a weekly TV program, that aired on the Legal Channel in China’s central-eastern Henan Province for over five years.

Starting in late 2006, the hour-long show attracted millions of viewers and ranked among the top-ten TV programs in the province. Every Saturday night, almost half of Henan’s 94 million residents tuned in to watch the show, which was not available to viewers outside the province.

The show has now gained international attention since the BBC aired a documentary, "The Execution Factor," on Monday. A Chinese production company, LIC, worked with the BBC and PBS International, which will soon launch its own documentary on the show and its host, Ding.   

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Last words
Ding interviewed 226 prisoners on death row. Most of the prisoners were executed afterwards, but some received a death penalty "pardon" with a few years of reprieve, which usually means a life sentence in China.

A former law student, Ding’s journalistic style is similar to many female Chinese primetime news anchors: She has short hair, a patient-tone with her interviewees, is well-dressed – but not ostentatious – and her questioning style is straightforward, not dramatic 

She interviewed a husband who killed his ex-wife because he "was still in love with her," a teenage girl who ruthlessly strangled her best friend over a trivial quarrel, and a wife who burned her husband to death after suffering years of domestic abuse.

Ding was particularly blunt with one unrepentant interviewee, saying: "I’m glad you got caught. You are a scumbag." One episode featured a man yelping, "I’m sorry," and kneeling down on the ground hours before his execution. In another, right before his execution a convict asked her: "Can I shake hands with you?"

The producers say the aim of the show was to act as a deterrent to other would-be criminals. And while there are up to 55 crimes in China that carry a potential death penalty sentence, the show focused exclusively on cases of violent murder. The show also got Henan province’s High Court approval for each case that was featured.

"Many people say I’m an angel and devil. I never thought myself as an angel, because it’s work that puts me into contact with these people. I see myself more as a witness," Ding told the BBC in their 50-minute-long documentary.

While 58 countries in the world impose the death penalty, China is believed to have the highest number of executions annually. The exact number is considered to be a "state secret," but the government argues it’s dropped steadily since early 2007 when the Supreme Court took back the right to have the final say on all death verdicts from local courts. 

A 2011 report from Amnesty International indicates China executed thousands of people in 2010.

While it’s hard to determine the exact number, Ding’s show does offer some indication of how big they are, according to He Weifang, a law professor at Peking University. "Ding Yu interviewed 226 prisoners sentenced to death in five years. My guess is all these cases were tried in Henan Province and they only represent part of the whole situation. You can imagine how big the number is nationwide,” He commented on his blog.

Many scholars and lawyers have argued for the abolishment of the death penalty, but in a country with rampant corruption (which is also a capital crime over a certain financial amount), there seems to be little real movement to outlaw it.   

Backlash
With all the international attention on the show, there have been concerns about whether or not it would continue to air.

 

"We were very worried about the consequences after the documentary aired. Some media have distorted our program," Shirley Cheng, a producer from the Chinese production company LIC, told NBC News by phone. "We didn’t do it to discuss the death the penalty. We just wanted to record the process."

A BBC report on Monday claimed the show was taken off the air by Henan TV last Friday. When NBC News reached Henan Legal Channel and asked about it, we were told that was not the case.

The temporary "disappearance" of the show is apparently only making room for a new show, and "Interview before Execution" will come back on air in about six weeks.

However, on the channel’s official website, no links to Ding Yu’s program can be found, while information about other shows is available.  

TEHRAN -- Iran's supreme court on Monday dismissed an execution sentence passed by a revolutionary court against an Iranian-American national accused of spying for the CIA, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

"The supreme court nullified the execution sentence against Amir Mirza Hekmati and sent it to an affiliate court," said judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei without giving further details.

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Hekmati, a 28-year-old of Iranian descent, was arrested in December and Iran's Intelligence Ministry accused him of receiving training at U.S. bases in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq.

The former military translator was born in Arizona, attended high school in Michigan and holds dual U.S.-Iranian citizenship.

His family said he was in Iran to visit his grandmothers when he was arrested.

Iran on radar as Obama talks to Israel supporters

Iran accuses Hekmati of receiving special training and serving at U.S. military bases before heading to Iran for an alleged intelligence mission. In December, Iran broadcast a video on state television in which Hekmati was shown delivering a purported confession in which he said he was part of a plot to infiltrate Iran's Intelligence Agency.

He was sentenced to death in January. The U.S. government has called Hekmati a victim of false charges.

Iran, which often accuses its foes of trying to destabilize its Islamic system, said in May it had arrested 30 people on suspicion of spying for the United States and later 15 people were indicted for spying for Washington and Israel. Hekmati's mother was allowed to see her son several times.

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The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

 

DUBAI -- Rights group Amnesty International has described as "deeply shocking" Saudi Arabia's beheading of a woman convicted on charges of "sorcery and witchcraft," saying it underlined the urgent need to end executions in the kingdom.

Saudi national Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser was executed on Monday in the northern province of al-Jawf after being tried and convicted for practicing sorcery, the interior ministry said, without giving details of the charges.

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"The citizen... practiced acts of witchcraft and sorcery," Saudi newspaper al-Watan cited the interior ministry as saying. "The death sentence was carried out on the accused yesterday (Monday) in the Qurayyat district in al-Jawf region."

Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy, has no written criminal code, which is instead based on an uncodified form of Islamic sharia law as interpreted by the country's judges.

"While we don't know the details of the acts which the authorities accused Amina of committing, the charge of sorcery has often been used in Saudi Arabia to punish people, generally after unfair trials, for exercising their right to freedom of speech or religion," Philip Luther, interim director of Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa program, said in a statement.

Amnesty said the execution was the second of its kind in recent months. A Sudanese national was beheaded in the Saudi city of Medina in September after being convicted on sorcery charges, according to the London-based group.

Amnesty put at 79 the number of executions in Saudi Arabia so far this year, nearly triple the figure in 2010.

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