In addition to dozens of detainees who face the risk of being killed at any moment inside Tabuk prison, the European-Saudi Organization for Human Rights has documented the case of Jordanian citizen Ihab Nayef al-Hindawi.
Al-Hindawi was arrested on August 9, 2012, by the customs of Hattat Ammar, accompanied by Khalid Fayez al-Hindawi, who were coming to perform the Umrah pilgrimage. He was arrested after customs forces claimed that narcotics were seized in the bus he was traveling in with 48 other passengers.
Before the judge, both Ihab and Khaled al-Hindawi asserted that they were tortured and severely beaten to confess to the possession of narcotics, denied the charges against them, and indicated that the seized substances did not belong to them. Despite this, on April 25, 2013, he was sentenced to death by ta'zira. According to information received by the organization, the Supreme Court overturned this verdict.
After 9 years of detention, al-Hindawi and his co-defendants were retried before the General Court in Tabuk, contrary to the cases previously monitored by the organization in drug cases that were ruled by the Criminal Court. On April 27, 2021, the court re-sentenced him again to death by ta'zira, while the court announced that Khalid al-Hindawi had died in prison.
The European-Saudi Organization for Human Rights notes that Khaled al-Hindawi's death in prison adds to dozens of mysterious deaths in Saudi prisons, where the organization has documented mistreatment, torture and neglect, the most recent of which was the death of Jordanian citizen Adnan al-Sharaideh in Al-Jawf prison due to medical negligence.
The organization believes that the lower court's return of the same verdict after it was overturned by the Supreme Court raises question marks about the usefulness of retrials when the violations are not investigated and the resulting evidence, especially confessions extracted under torture, is not overturned.
Despite the lack of transparency, and despite attempts to silence detainees and their families, the European-Saudi Organization continues to document cases of individuals sentenced to death after trials marred by numerous flaws and gross violations of justice. According to the organization's tracking, at least 28 Egyptian detainees are at risk of execution in Tabuk prison, in addition to dozens of other nationalities.
ESOHR believes that the violations that have been documented require an immediate halt to the execution of death sentences in Saudi Arabia, especially in drug cases. The organization notes that it has observed a pattern of unfair trials that have resulted in death sentences against citizens of foreign nationalities, including torture and denial of the right to adequate self-defense.
The organization considers that the continued execution of death sentences in high numbers despite all the flaws reflects Saudi Arabia's insistence on bloodiness in dealing with all files, including the anti-drug file