Many sentenced but none stoned to death

Saudi Arabia’s laws include stoning to death but the penalty has not been executed for many years because convicts can avert it by pleading not guilty, according to a former Saudi law enforcer.

Mohammed Al Zahrani, ex-director of the Saudi prisons department, said many people had been sentenced to stoning to death over the past year for committing major crimes in line with the law but none of them has been stoned.

He said many sites had been prepared for stoning at cemeteries in Riyadh and other cities in the past years but none of them has so far been used.

“Many convicted criminals had been sentenced to stoning to death in the past years but none of them has been stoned,” he told the Saudi Islamic TV channel Al-Resala.

“The reason is that they retract their confessions before the execution of the sentence. This is because Islam gives a chance to these convicts before they are stoned. They are informed that they can avoid being stoned if they change their statements and all of them have done so just before they were stoned.”

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