Saudi Arabia executes a journalist after 7 years in prison — for online posts, activists say

DUBAI — A prominent Saudi journalist who was arrested in 2018 and convicted on terrorism and treason charges has been executed, the kingdom said. Activist groups say the charges against him were trumped up.

Turki Al-Jasser, who was in his late 40s, was put to death Saturday, according to the official Saudi Press Agency, after the death penalty was upheld by the nation’s top court.

Authorities had raided Al-Jasser’s home in 2018, arresting him and seizing his computer and phones. It was unclear where his trial took place or how long it lasted.

According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, Saudi authorities maintained that Al-Jasser was behind a social media account on X that levied corruption allegations against Saudi royals. Al-Jasser was also said to have posted several controversial tweets about militants and militant groups.

CPJ’s program director Carlos Martínez de la Serna condemned the execution and said the lack of accountability in the aftermath of the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018 allows for continued persecution of journalists in the kingdom.

“The international community’s failure to deliver justice for Jamal Khashoggi did not just betray one journalist,” he said, adding that it had “emboldened de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to continue his persecution of the press.”

Al-Jasser’s “execution once again demonstrates that in Saudi Arabia, the punishment for criticizing or questioning Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is death,” said Jeed Basyouni, head of the Middle East and North Africa section at Reprieve, an international anti-death-penalty advocacy group.

Basyouni added that Al-Jasser was tried and convicted “in total secrecy for the ‘crime’ of journalism.”

A Saudi assassination team killed Khashoggi at the consulate in Istanbul. The U.S. intelligence community concluded that the Saudi crown prince ordered the operation, but the kingdom insists the prince was not involved in the killing.

Al-Jasser ran a personal blog from 2013 to 2015 and was well known for his articles on the Arab Spring movements that shook the Middle East in 2011, women’s rights and corruption.

Saudi Arabia has drawn criticism from human rights groups for its number of executions and its methods of capital punishment, including beheadings and mass executions. In 2024, executions in Saudi Arabia rose to 330, according to activists and human rights groups, as the kingdom continues to tightly clamp down on dissent.

Last month, a British Bank of America analyst was sentenced to a decade in prison in Saudi Arabia, apparently over a since-deleted social media post, according to his lawyer.

And in 2021, a Saudi American dual national, Saad Almadi, was arrested and later sentenced to more than 19 years in prison on terrorism-related charges stemming from tweets he had posted while living in the United States. He was released in 2023 but has been banned from leaving the kingdom.

Levin writes for the Associated Press.