Saudi Arabia has recorded its highest number of executions in a single year, reaching 340 so far in 2025, following the execution of three individuals on Monday, according to a tally by AFP.
The figure surpasses last year’s record of 338 executions and marks the second consecutive year the kingdom has broken its own record since rights groups began tracking such data in the 1990s.
A statement from the Interior Ministry, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA), said the three executed individuals in the Mecca region were convicted of murder.
Of the 340 executions this year, 232 involved drug-related offenses, making up the majority of the deaths, according to AFP’s compilation based on ministry and SPA announcements. Analysts attribute the surge largely to Saudi Arabia’s “war on drugs,” launched in 2023, with many offenders arrested in previous years now being executed following legal proceedings.
Saudi Arabia had briefly suspended executions for drug offenses for around three years but resumed them at the end of 2022. The kingdom has intensified highway and border checkpoints, confiscated millions of illicit captagon pills, and arrested dozens of traffickers, with foreigners disproportionately affected.
As the Arab world’s largest economy and a major market for captagon, the country relies heavily on foreign labor in construction, domestic work, and hospitality.
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