A Saudi firing squad Wednesday executed in public seven men convicted of armed robbery despite last-minute appeals by rights groups that their lives be spared, the interior ministry and a witness said.
The condemned men were convicted of “forming a gang that carried out several armed robberies and thefts with the help of other people,” the ministry said in a statement published by the official SPA news agency. They were executed “as a punishment to them and to deter others” from carrying out similar crimes, said SPA, adding that their fellow-robbers had been sentenced to various jail terms and lashes.