Saudi executes Yemeni drug trafficker

Nayef al-Briki was found guilty of “receiving a large amount” of hashish and attempting to sell it, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

He was beheaded in the southwestern city of Jizan, near the border with Yemen.

European aerospace and defence contractor EADS in 2009 signed a contract with Saudi Arabia to build a high-tech security fence along its borders, including the southern frontier with violence-plagued Yemen.

The government says it is determined to combat narcotics but it has faced international criticism over its human rights record, including the use of the death penalty.

Drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy and armed robbery are all punishable by death under the kingdom’s strict version of Islamic sharia law.

The Gulf nation executed 87 people last year, up from 78 in 2013. -AFP