Saudi executes 88th person this year, topping 2014 total

Saudi Arabia on May 26 carried out its 88th execution so far this year, surpassing the total for all of 2014 despite activists' concerns that trials are not conducted fairly.

The interior ministry identified the latest to be put to death as Saudis Awad al-Rowaili and Lafi al-Shammary, who were convicted of smuggling amphetamines.
 
They were executed in the northern region of Jawf, the ministry said in statements carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
 
Another Saudi, Mohammed al-Shihri, was separately put to death in the southwestern region of Asir for murder.
 
The conservative Islamic kingdom executed 87 people in 2014, according to an AFP tally.
 
Those beheaded this year include Siti Zainab, an Indonesian domestic worker convicted of murder despite concerns about her mental health, according to the Indonesian newspaper Kompas.
 
Jakarta summoned Riyadh's ambassador over her case, a rare diplomatic incident linked to Saudi Arabia's executions, around half of which involve foreigners.
 
Also among this year's dead are at least eight Yemenis, 10 Pakistanis, Syrians, Jordanians, and individuals from Myanmar, the Philippines, India, Chad, Eritrea and Sudan.
 
Saudi Arabia ranked among the world's top five executioners in 2014, according to rights group Amnesty International.
 
Under the Gulf nation's strict version of Islamic sharia law, drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy and armed robbery are all punishable by death.
 
Executions are carried out in public, mostly by beheading with a sword.
 
A surge in executions began towards the end of the reign of King Abdullah, who died on January 23.
 
It accelerated this year under his successor...