The authorities in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday beheaded a citizen convicted of shooting dead a compatriot, the interior ministry said.

Mohammed Matrak Mohammed al-Dosari was found guilty of killing Mubarak Zafir Manahi al-Dosari using a machinegun, the ministry said in a statement carried by the state news agency SPA.

The killing came after a fist fight over a financial dispute, it said.

His execution in Riyadh brings to 13 the number of death sentences carried out this year in the ultra-conservative kingdom.

Saudi Arabia beheaded 78 people in 2013, according to an AFP count.

Last year, the UN High Commission for Human Rights denounced a "sharp increase in the use of capital punishment" since 2011 in Saudi Arabia.

According to figures from rights group Amnesty International, the number of Saudi executions rose from 27 in 2010, of whom five were foreigners, to 82 in 2011, including 28 foreigners.

In 2012, the number of executions dipped slightly to 79, among them 27 foreigners.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's strict version of Islamic sharia law.


Source : AFP