Saudi Arabia Records Historic Number of Executions for the Second Consecutive Year

On December 21, 2025, the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) report­ed that Saudi Arabia car­ried out 347 exe­cu­tions in 2025, mark­ing a new high for the nation, after a record-break­ing 345 exe­cu­tions in 2024. The major­i­ty (79%) of exe­cu­tions in 2025 were for crimes fail­ing to meet the inter­na­tion­al legal thresh­old of a ​“most seri­ous crime” and pre­dom­i­nate­ly includ­ed exe­cu­tions for drug-relat­ed charges (69% of all exe­cu­tions). Due to a lack of trans­paren­cy, the num­bers report­ed by ESOHR are min­i­mum counts. ESOHR notes that the nation’s con­tin­ued expand­ed use of the death penal­ty con­tra­dicts pre­vi­ous promis­es made by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in years past to lim­it its use in the Kingdom. 

Over the last cou­ple years, Saudi Arabia has dra­mat­i­cal­ly increased its use of the of the death penal­ty with a par­tic­u­lar focus on exe­cu­tions for drug-relat­ed offens­es. Last year, Amnesty International report­ed that the num­ber of known exe­cu­tions in Saudi Arabia dou­bled from 172 in 2023 to at least 345 in 2024 — a his­toric high that was sur­passed in 2025. The expan­sion of the death penal­ty in 2024 was accom­pa­nied by a dra­mat­ic 6000% increase in exe­cu­tions for drug-relat­ed offens­es — from just 2 in 2023 to 122 in 2024 — accord­ing to Harm Reduction International’s 2024 report. According to ESOHR’s new report, 2025 expe­ri­enced a con­tin­u­a­tion of this trend with drug-relat­ed offens­es com­pris­ing 69% of all exe­cu­tions in 2025, almost twice the num­ber in 2024 (35%). Of note, 97 exe­cu­tions were car­ried out on charges sole­ly involv­ing hashish, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant increase from just 15 cas­es in 2024. 

The major­i­ty of those exe­cut­ed were for­eign­ers, who account­ed for 57% of all those exe­cut­ed in 2025 — an increase from 31% in 2024. Of the 202 for­eign­ers exe­cut­ed in Saudi Arabia in 2025, 94% were con­vict­ed of non-lethal drug-relat­ed offens­es. According to ESOHR, their tri­als often fea­tured due process vio­la­tions. Reporting by The Guardian in November 2025 shed light on some of these vio­la­tions for a group of Egyptian migrants held in the ​“death wing” of Tabuk prison in north­ern Saudi Arabia. Their fam­i­lies recount­ed tor­ture-taint­ed con­fes­sions and a lack of funds to hire legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Previously, pris­on­ers would receive notice of their immi­nent exe­cu­tion and be afford­ed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to call their fam­i­lies, but now some fam­i­lies have report­ed only being noti­fied of a loved one’s exe­cu­tion after the fact. 

For the first time since 2021, Saudi Arabia car­ried out the exe­cu­tion of indi­vid­u­als for crimes com­mit­ted as juve­niles in 2025 despite calls from the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. Two men were con­vict­ed of crimes com­mit­ted as late teens and relat­ed to protests against the ill-treat­ment of the nation’s Shi’a minor­i­ty. On August 21, 2025, Jalal Labbad was exe­cut­ed for a ta’zir crime, mean­ing the judi­cia­ry used its dis­cre­tion to impose his death sen­tence, as it was not man­dat­ed under Islamic law. Amnesty International reports that Mr. Labbad had been denied coun­sel dur­ing pre-tri­al deten­tion and ​“told the court that he had been tor­tured, beat­en up and elec­tro­cut­ed to ​‘con­fess’ his guilt.” On October 20, 2025, Abdullah al-Derazi was exe­cut­ed for ter­ror­ism-relat­ed charges fol­low­ing a ​“gross­ly unfair tri­al that relied on a tor­ture-taint­ed ​‘con­fes­sion.’” Both the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights pro­hib­it the death penal­ty for crimes com­mit­ted as juveniles.