Saudi Arabia executed a record 345 people in 2024, the highest number documented by Amnesty International in over three decades of tracking the kingdom’s use of the death penalty.

The global rights group released its findings Monday, warning of a continued spike in executions this year.

Amnesty said the surge in executions, many involving non-violent offences, shows concerns over the kingdom’s harsh application of capital punishment.

In the first half of 2025 alone, at least 180 people have already been put to death, suggesting the country is on pace to surpass last year’s total.

According to Reprieve, a UK-based legal advocacy group, around two-thirds of those executed so far this year were convicted in non-lethal drug-related cases.

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Amnesty raised similar concerns, describing the trend as part of an ongoing pattern that contradicts earlier assurances from the Saudi leadership.

According to Associated Press, Saudi authorities have not publicly commented on the growing number of executions.

The silence, however, stands in contrast to previous remarks by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who in a 2022 interview with The Atlantic claimed the death penalty had been limited to homicide cases based on Islamic legal requirements.

“Well, about the death penalty, we got rid of all of it, except for one category…because it is a clear teaching in the Quran,” the crown prince said at the time.

Despite such claims, Saudi Arabia remains one of the world’s top executioners, ranking only behind China and Iran.

Unlike many countries, the kingdom still allows the death penalty for drug-related offences, a position it shares with some of its regional neighbours, including Iran, Kuwait, and the UAE.

Amnesty documented 25 cases involving foreign nationals currently on death row or recently executed for drug offences in Saudi Arabia. Many of them, the group said, lacked basic legal representation and were unfamiliar with the Saudi legal system.

More than half of those executed this year have reportedly been foreign nationals.

One such case is that of Egyptian citizen Essam Ahmed, who vanished in 2021 while working on a fishing boat near the Sinai Peninsula. His family later discovered he had been detained in Saudi Arabia and sentenced to death for drug trafficking.

Ahmed reportedly told relatives he was forced at gunpoint by his boat’s owner to carry a package without knowing its contents.

“We’re living in terror, every morning until 9 a.m., we’re afraid they took one of them for execution without us knowing. We don’t have feelings anymore. We’re dead,” a family member told the AP on condition of anonymity.

The return to drug-related executions also highlights the abrupt reversal of a policy announced in 2021.

That year, Saudi Arabia’s Human Rights Commission said there would be a moratorium on executing people for drug crimes as part of a broader criminal justice reform push. But the pause lasted less than three years and was lifted without explanation.

The executions come as Saudi Arabia continues to pursue economic and social reforms under its “Vision 2030” initiative.