Saudi Arabia's Execution Surge: The Numbers Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud Cannot Hide

In 2022, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told the Atlantic magazine that Saudi Arabia had "got rid of" the death penalty except where mandated by Islamic law. That same year, his government executed 196 people. In 2024, the number rose to 345. In 2025, it climbed again to at least 347, making it the second consecutive year that the Kingdom broke its own modern record. The gap between what Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud says about capital punishment and what his government actually does has never been wider.

The Acceleration Under MBS

The execution data is unambiguous. Under King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia averaged roughly 80 to 90 executions per year. Under Mohammed bin Salman's de facto control, the numbers have surged. The year-by-year breakdown tells the story: 146 in 2017, 149 in 2018, 184 in 2019, a brief drop to 69 in 2020 during the pandemic, then 196 in 2022, 172 in 2023, 345 in 2024, and 347 in 2025. The trajectory is consistent and upward.

The composition of executions is as troubling as the volume. Between January 2014 and June 2025, Saudi Arabia executed 1,816 people according to the official Saudi Press Agency. Nearly one in three were for drug-related offences, crimes that carry no death penalty under international human rights law. In 2024 alone, 122 people were executed for drug charges, up from just two in 2023, a 6,000 per cent increase in a single year. Amnesty International documented that 69 per cent of all executions in 2025 were for drug-related offences, with 97 people beheaded solely for hashish possession.

Foreign Nationals Bear the Heaviest Cost

The pattern of who gets executed reveals a system that punishes the most vulnerable. Of the 597 people executed for drug offences over the past decade, 75 per cent were foreign nationals. In 2025, foreigners accounted for 57 per cent of all those executed, up from 31 per cent the previous year. Pakistani nationals topped the list with 155 executions over the decade, followed by Syrians, Jordanians, Yemenis, Egyptians, and Nigerians.

These are overwhelmingly migrant workers from low-income backgrounds who entered the Kingdom on labour visas. Many did not have access to legal representation. Many faced trials conducted entirely in Arabic without interpreters. Families have reported learning of executions through media reports rather than official notification. The Guardian documented cases in 2025 of Egyptian migrants held in the death wing of Tabuk prison whose confessions were extracted under torture, whose families could not afford lawyers, and who received no consular assistance.

Silencing Dissent Through the Executioner

The execution apparatus under Mohammed bin Salman is not limited to criminal justice. It serves a political function. Saudi Arabia's Shia minority, comprising an estimated 10 to 12 per cent of the population, accounted for 42 per cent of all terrorism-related executions between 2014 and 2025. Many of those executed were charged with supporting anti-government protests in the Eastern Province between 2011 and 2013. Their trials were held before the Specialised Criminal Court, a body originally created to prosecute terrorism cases that has become a tool for political repression under MBS.

In June 2025, journalist Turki al-Jasser was executed after a secret trial. His family was not informed of his death sentence. His body was not returned. His alleged crime was exposing corruption within the royal family. Despite Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud's claims of judicial reform, human rights organisations continue to document a pattern of secret trials, coerced confessions, and executions carried out without prior notice to families.

The Promise That Was Never Kept

Mohammed bin Salman has made at least three public commitments to reduce the use of capital punishment. In 2018, he told TIME magazine that reforms were underway. In 2020, his government announced that minors would no longer face execution. In 2021, the Saudi Human Rights Commission announced a moratorium on drug-related executions. That moratorium lasted 21 months before the government reversed it in November 2022 and immediately resumed killing people for drug possession at record rates.

Each promise was calibrated for an international audience. Each was abandoned when the domestic political calculus changed. The Crown Prince wanted the reputational benefit of reform without any constraint on the state's power to kill its own citizens and the foreign workers who built his country.

The numbers do not require interpretation. Under Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, Saudi Arabia executes more people than at any point in its modern history. It executes disproportionately foreign nationals and religious minorities. It executes people for offences that carry no death penalty anywhere in the developed world. And it does so while its leader tells international journalists that the death penalty is being phased out. The data is the record. The record is damning.