Boris Johnson has ‘blood on his hands’ as Saudi Arabia execute three people during his visit

Steve Hopkins

Saudi Arabia executed 81 people last weekend alone

Saudi Arabia is said to have executed three more people on Wednesday, as Boris Johnson began talks in the Gulf in an attempt to end the UK’s reliance on Russian oil and gas over its invasion of Ukraine.

While the PM says he is attempting to “avoid being blackmailed” by Russian President, Vladimir Putin, unease is growing over the UK trying to strike a deal with a country that regularly executes people, with one charity saying the PM now has “blood on his hands”.

Last weekend, Saudi Arabia carried out a mass execution of 81 men in one day and its Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has been implicated in the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

On Wednesday, it was said that a further three executions took place. The deaths were reported by Saudi news agency SPA and were described by human rights NGO, Reprieve, as a “provocative act” designed to “flaunt the Crown Prince’s power”.

Reprieve further said that Johnson’s trip, after a mass execution, signals that the UK “will tolerate the gravest human rights abuses”.

“Johnson has blood on his hands,” it tweeted.

🚨BREAKING: Saudi Arabia executed 3 more people this morning during @BorisJohnson's visit.

Travelling to Saudi Arabia after a mass execution signaled the UK will tolerate the gravest human rights abuses. Today’s executions are the immediate result. Johnson has blood on his hands

— Reprieve (@Reprieve) March 16, 2022

On 12 March, Saudi Arabia executed more people than it did in all of 2021. Last year they executed 69 people.

According to a report by the BBC, the 81 men killed, included even Yemenis and one Syrian national. The SPA news agency said they were convicted of “multiple heinous crimes”, including terrorism, but rights organisations said many did not receive fair trials.

According to Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia has the fifth-highest execution rate in the world behind China, Iran, Egypt, and Iraq. Official data is not available for China, but Amnesty believes executions in the country are in the thousands.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Wednesday that, “going cap in hand from dictator to dictator is not an energy strategy”.

His comments came as the US officially branded Putin a war criminal for his attacks on Ukraine, which have included bombing maternity hospitals and the murder of civilians.

Labour deputy leader, Angela Rayner, told MPs that Johnson was on “a begging mission to the Saudi prince” after failing to invest in home-grown energy.

Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, told the BBC that Johnson should not be “doing deals” with Crown Prince Salman unless he insisted “on the truth and justice for Jamal’s murder”.

https://twitter.com/CapitalYORKNews/status/1504098424483897347

Johnson has defended the trip, saying the UK needs to move away from using Russia’s fossil fuels and explore other partnerships. He has pledged to raise human rights concerns during his meetings in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Asked about working with a government with a questionable human rights records, Johnson said: “I’ve raised all those issues many, many times – since I was foreign secretary and beyond and I’ll raise them all again today.”

He cited Saudi Arabia announcing a £1bn investment in green aviation fuel in the UK as “the kind of thing we want to encourage”.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast on Wednesday, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, also defended Johnson’s trip saying it was “absolutely right” to look for alternative sources of oil and gas.

However, speaking in Washington last week, Truss said the west needed to end its dependence on “hostile and authoritarian states”.

The remarks led to her this week being accused of double-standards for supporting Johnson’s trip.

Good Morning Britain host Susanna Reid asked Truss why the UK had taken a “very moral stance on Russia” yet that collapses “when it comes to Saudi”.

Truss replied: “Well, these are two very, very different cases. What Vladimir Putin is seeking to do, and he’s been seeking to do this for some time and frankly the West has been asleep at the wheel, but he is seeking to regain vast swathes of what was the Soviet Union under Russian control. He won’t stop at Ukraine if we don’t stop him.”

When Reid suggested the UK was simply increasing “our dependence on another authoritarian regime”, Truss said: “What I’m saying is that Russia is the greatest threat to global security, it is the greatest threat to Britain’s security that there is. “We have to work with all of the potential partners that we can to diversify away from Russian oil and gas and ensure Europe does that as well.”

Johnson arrived at Abu Dhabi airport in the UAE, before he met with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. He then travelled to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, where he met Crown Prince Salman and Saudi ministers.

Tory MP Crispin Blunt said the executions left Johnson with “exquisite difficulties” in asking Saudi Arabia for help with oil supplies.

Blunt on Tuesday called Saudi Arabia’s record executions a “new low for human rights”.

Execution of 81 in #KSA represents a new low for human rights. Emptying Saudi death row in this way is an affront to all who have worked to build a positive relationship with the Kingdom, and is a step backwards for criminal justice. https://t.co/9iCaWGt1SM

— Crispin Blunt MP (@CrispinBlunt) March 15, 2022

Liberal Democrat MP, Alistair Carmichael, said in the Commons on Monday: “Actions do speak louder than words. “If the prime minister goes in the next few days to Saudi Arabia, we will be sending a very clear signal that no matter what we say, we’re not really bothered about this sort of thing.”

Khashoggi was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Saudi Arabia said he had been killed in a “rogue operation” by a team of agents sent to persuade him to return to the kingdom, but a UN investigator later concluded he was the victim of a “deliberate, premeditated execution” for which the Saudi state was responsible.

Crown Prince Salman denied any role in his death.

As well as the murder of Khashoggi and the execution of large numbers of people, Saudi Arabia has been heavily criticised for the war in Yemen, punishing same-sex relationships, jailing women’s rights activists, cracking down on intellectuals, clerics, and reformists. Read more here.