Saudi beheads Pakistani drug-smuggler: ministry

Riyadh: Saudi Arabia beheaded a Pakistani man who was arrested as he tried to smuggle drugs into the ultra-conservative kingdom, the interior ministry said on Monday.

"Salman Khan Taj Mohammad, a Pakistani... was arrested as he was caught smuggling a large amount of heroin" into the country, the ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency SPA.

He was interrogated and convicted of drug smuggling, a crime punishable by death according to the kingdom's laws.

Beheaded

The man was beheaded in Dammam in eastern Saudi Arabia, SPA reported, bringing to five the number of Saudi executions carried out so far in 2012.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights voiced alarm this month at the almost threefold increase in executions in Saudi Arabia last year.

Saudi Arabia applies the death penalty for a wide range of offences, including rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking.

At least 76 death row inmates were executed in 2011, according to an AFP count, while Amnesty International has said the kingdom executed 79 people last year.

In 2010, 27 people were executed, according to the UN, citing a report by Human Rights Watch.