For a year, Mohamed Saad’s family did not know whether he was alive or dead. The 28-year-old Egyptian fisherman made regular trips to the coast of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and never returned. Relatives searched for months, though they never heard from authorities. When he finally heard his voice, it was from a prison in Tabuk, northern Saudi Arabia, where Saad said he was being held on drug smuggling charges.
On October 21, the Saudi government killed him eight years after he was captured. His family learned of his death through his cellmate. The Saudi state news agency announced that a court had convicted him of smuggling amphetamine pills. So far, Saudi authorities have not yet notified Saad’s family of his murder or told them where he will be buried, a source close to the family told CNN.
Saad is one of hundreds of people executed in Saudi Arabia this year, most of them accused of non-lethal drug crimes, according to a database compiled by the Berlin-based European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) and Repriv, which monitors Saudi media and interviews families.
Many of them were foreigners, including Egyptian, Somali and Ethiopian migrant workers, who were drawn to Saudi Arabia’s economic attractiveness and later found themselves trapped in the judicial system. Rights groups say the kingdom executed 345 people in 2024, double the rate in previous years.
Since becoming de facto leader in 2017, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, widely known by his initials MBS, has sought to modernize the kingdom at breathtaking speed. Experienced visitors describe the country as almost unrecognizable. He will neutralize the religious police, abolish flogging, allow women to drive, and host the 2034 Soccer World Cup. His country has hosted world-famous festivals that attract musicians and athletes from all over the world.
It’s all to attract Western tourists and capital as he embarks on an ambitious economic transformation plan called Vision 2030.
Planning will be at the forefront of this week’s trip to Washington, D.C., his first visit in seven years. He will seek U.S. involvement in the kingdom’s economy and defense, with a high-profile U.S.-Saudi investment summit scheduled for November 19.
Few expect human rights to feature prominently in talks between the two sides. But campaigners warn that the PR campaign is masking a darker reality in his home country, and that his close relationship with President Donald Trump is giving him free rein.
Despite MBS saying in 2018 that Saudi Arabia was working to minimize executions, Saudi Arabia continues to execute more people than almost any other country on earth except Iran and China, observers and human rights groups say.
CNN, with support from the international nonprofit Repriv and ESOHR, spoke with four people close to the families of those executed and death row inmates to uncover their stories. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation against the family.
There are also incidents that betray the image of a modern nation. In one case, a Saudi woman and a Yemeni man were executed for kidnapping a baby to practice witchcraft.
Rights groups are sounding the alarm. At the current pace of executions, Saudi Arabia is on track to break that record again this year, they say.
Several foreigners remain in Tabuk prison, where Saad was detained. Among them is Essam al-Shazly, a 27-year-old Egyptian fisherman on death row for smuggling 1.8 grams of amphetamines and a substance “likely to be heroin,” according to legal documents obtained by CNN. A source close to the family said they did not know what was on the ship when they boarded the ship.
“The family had been looking for him for two months. They didn’t know what happened until they received a phone call from him in prison,” the source said.
In a January letter to the UN special rapporteur, the Saudi government denied allegations of secret executions, unfair trials and mistreatment of foreign prisoners. The group claimed that claims that the bodies of those executed were returned to the embassy and that official notifications were published by the Saudi Press Agency were inaccurate.
Saudi Arabia also said that all death penalty cases go through three stages of judicial review: trial, appeal and Supreme Court before being approved by royal decree. The government denies allegations of discrimination and torture, saying all prisoners are treated equally, foreign nationals have consular access, and the death penalty is reserved for “the most serious crimes and very limited circumstances.”
CNN has contacted the Kingdom’s Media Ministry for comment.
Rights groups and people close to the defendants say prisoners are not always given legal representation, and even when they are, it rarely changes the outcome of the case.
Testimonies from Tabuk Prison, provided to CNN by people close to the inmates, describe how prisoners on death row wait each morning to hear their names called and be told whether they will be executed that day.
Further east, in Dammam, two young Shiite men are on death row. They are Hassan Zaki al-Falaj, and Jawad and Abdullah Khuriris, who are now in their 20s. Both men were arrested and sentenced to death for crimes they committed as teenagers during the Arab Spring, according to rights groups and people close to their families.
A source close to Al Faraj’s family said police raided his home in 2017, beat and detained the men inside. He and his father remain in custody.
According to ESOHR, Kreilis spent 270 days in solitary confinement after being detained, accused of attending a funeral that authorities classified as an illegal protest. CNN previously reported that his younger brother Murtaja was also on death row at the age of 13 for a similar crime, but was later released.
Critics say the Trump administration has chosen to prioritize trade and arms sales over human rights. In May, Riyadh and Washington announced a $142 billion arms deal as part of a broader $600 billion commitment to energy, infrastructure and technology development.
President Trump also selected Riyadh for his first foreign trip in his first and second terms as president, ahead of a broader Gulf investment commitment of more than $2 trillion to the United States.
Madawi al-Rasheed, a Saudi academic based in London, told CNN: “Saudi society is silent, especially with the return of President Trump…and believes Saudi Arabia has a clean slate policy.”
Sarah Leah Whitson, director of the US-based human rights group DAWN, said the prince was “a ruler who believes he can do whatever he wants.” “He enjoys the complete lack of accountability.”
“(The executions) are intended to incite fear and demonstrate that the consequences of actions deemed unacceptable by the Saudi government are severe and severe,” Whitson said.
The wait continues to be agonizing for prisoners like Hassan al-Falaj, Jawad Khuriris and Essam al-Shazly and their families. They count the time between short calls in weeks and the time between updates in months. Everyone fears hearing the worst.
“It’s hard to overstate how cruel and cynical this regime is. It’s a system of lies and brutality,” said Zied Bashouni, head of Ripley Eve’s Middle East and North Africa death row team. “The lies start from the beginning, with Mohammed bin Salman telling journalists that he intends to reduce executions.”
