Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has said that its recent execution of 47 persons, including a famous Shi’ite cleric, Ameen Al Nimr is war against terrorism, not war against Shia Muslims.
In a statement, the Saudi government said the execution was within the ambit of the Islamic jurisprudence and that those executed were terrorists and not mere criminals.
The statement read “The government of Saudi Arabia is strongly opposed to the condemnation and protestations on the attacks it is enduring from people who are least abreast with the Islamic jurisprudence practised in our kingdom; which says, ‘Allah Almighty says in the Holy Quran that 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 or their hands and feet be cut off from the opposite sides or be exiled from the land. That is their disgrace in this world and a great torment is theirs in the hereafter.
“No nation would sit by and watch people who create chaos, provoke acts of violence and spread terrorist propaganda in its domain.
“The perpetrators were involved in a score of terrorist attacks which resulted in the death of innocent lives and destruction of private, public and military properties including, Al Hamra Housing Complex, in Riyadh, storming the complex of the APICORP the Arabian Company of Petroleum Investment or Saudi’s equivalence of NNPC, poisoning and sabotaging public water supply, kidnapping members of the public with the intention of mutilating their bodies or killing them, manufacturing and smuggling explosives into the kingdom and planning to damage the national economy as well as endangering the lives of the nation’s security personnel, foreign embassies, Saudi Arabia ARAMCO and several petroleum facilities of the kingdom.”
The statement added that “Shariah Law is its sole authority in the judiciary,” including laws affecting people and properties in its kingdom.