Lebanese Shi’ite council condemns Saudi execution of prominent cleric

‘The crime of executing Sheikh Nimr is part of a criminal pattern by this treacherous family… the Islamic world is expected to cry out and denounce this infamous regime as much as it can, ‘ Khatami added.

Demonstrators carrying pictures of the cleric faced security forces in a standoff in the Shia Muslim village of Abu-Saiba, west of the capital Manama.

Prominent Shi’ite Muslim cleric Nimr al-Nimrits’s name was among the list of those executed, according to state media.

“The recompense of those who wage war against Allah and his messenger and do mischief in the land is only that they shall be killed or crucified”, read a statement from Riyadh’s Interior Ministry, citing the Quran.

In comments posted on Iranian state television’s website, Ali Larijani said, “Nimr’s martyrdom will put Saudi Arabia in a maelstrom”.

Of the 47 executed, one was a Chadian national while another was Egyptian.

In 2014, a Saudi court sentenced Sheikh Nimr to death, provoking widespread global condemnations.

Reactions coming from Iran, a Shiite majority country, have been largely scathing, with its foreign ministry accusing Saudi Arabia on Saturday of supporting terrorism and executing its opponents.

The cleric was arrested in 2012, three years after calling for Eastern Province’s Shiite-populated Qatif and Al-Ihsaa governorates to be separated from Saudi Arabia and united with Bahrain.

Al-Nimr, who was in his 50s, had been a vocal critic of Bahrain’s monarchy, which forcibly suppressed protests in 2011 with the help of Saudi troops.

But the list does not include Nimr s nephew, Ali al-Nimr, who was 17 when he was arrested following the protests.

Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari strongly condemned the execution, which came after his Shia country repeatedly asked its Sunni-ruled rival to pardon the cleric.

“This action will spark anger of (Shiite) youths” in Saudi Arabia, said Mohammed al-Nimr.

Al-Nimir didn’t deny the political charges against him, but claimed he never carried a weapon or called for violence.

In announcing the verdicts, Saudi state television showed mugshots of those executed. Al-Nimr was No. 46, expressionless with a gray beard, his head covered with the red-and-white scarf traditionally worn by Saudi men. Soft, traditional music played in the background.

“We are completely confident with what we’re doing and we believe in it and do not care how others view our procedures, whether on justice or implementation of sentences”, he told a news conference.

She says in Saudi Arabia, defendants are not provided defense lawyers and in numerous cases of South Asians arrested for drug trafficking, they are not provided translators in court hearings.

“We hope that any reactions would be confined to a peaceful framework”.

Human rights groups say executions in Saudi Arabia are usually public beheadings.