Over 200 foreign nationals have been executed in a Saudi Arabian prison for drug related offenses. Human rights groups have advocated for these people while repeatedly noting how nobody “ listens to them.” Here’s everything you need to know about the brutal reality of the Tabuk prison.
A report by Reprieve shares that over 264 foreigners have been sent to their death for committing drug crimes in Saudi Arabia since 2024. The country ranks at number 3 in the world for the number of executions it carries out.
People executed in Saudi Arabia from 1 Jan to 3 Nov 2025. Many of those sentenced to death were probably innocent or forced into drug trafficking, say human rights groups.. https://t.co/IauyCRLjin pic.twitter.com/mzEfnDDcHM
— Maryam Aldossari (@maryam_dh) November 13, 2025
Many of those executed were people who agreed to smuggle drugs for only a few hundred dollars. The Guardian conducted an in-depth investigation into Tabuk Prison, often called the ‘death prison.’ The publication spoke to several of the family members of individuals who were never returned home.
The report sheds light on the condition of these prisoners while their surviving family members share stories of “forced confessions, torture, and an inability to afford lawyers to defend themselves,” according to the report.
“They’re poor, they’re marginalised. No one listens to them,” Jeed Basyouni, a member of the Reprieve charity, says. The Tabuk prison even has a prison ward named the “death wing,” where inmates who are sentenced to death are sent.
What is truly saddening about the executions is that most families aren’t even given an opportunity to bid farewell to their loved one. In the past, the prisoners were allowed to take a bath and call their loved ones before they were sent to their deaths.
Some families were informed about their loved one’s death after they had already been beheaded. What followed was a death certificate being issued to the family, with no corpses making it home either.
In 2021, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman suspended executions for drug-related offenses. In November 2022, the ban being lifted brought along a “horrifying” amount of executions, according to Dana Ahmed, an Amnesty International Middle East researcher.
‘I’ll be executed on Tuesday’
Saudia has executed 264 foreign prisoners, mostly Egyptians, for non-violent drug offences since 2024.
Families report torture, forced confessions & secret killings inside Tabuk prisonhttps://t.co/uv6RSYSnfR pic.twitter.com/7sQ5Q1nRmS
— HRM (@H_R_Matter) November 12, 2025
Thirty-three Egyptians were sent to death row in December 2024. 32 out of the group were arrested for non-violent drug crimes. One of them was a hotel worker named Ahmed Younes Al-Qayed, who was arrested and convicted for trafficking drugs in 2011. The man’s family shared how they were contacted by a court-appointed lawyer who told them that he would spend the rest of his life in prison.
“We lived on edge,” Hazem, a cousin of the man, shared the state of the family before he was executed. On 3 December, the man was executed along with two other Egyptian nationals.
