Riyadh: Saudi Arabia on Tuesday put to death one of its citizens convicted of murder, bringing to 51 the number of locals and foreigners executed this year.
Mishari al-Anzi was convicted of shooting dead another Saudi during a dispute, the interior ministry said.
Most executions in the country are carried out by beheading with a sword.
On January 2, the kingdom executed 47 men convicted of "terrorism", including Al-Qaeda-linked Sunni militants and Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, whose death sparked a diplomatic crisis with Iran.
Last year Saudi Arabia executed 153 people, most of them for drug trafficking or murder, according to AFP tallies.
Amnesty International said Saudi Arabia engaged in "a horrendous execution spree" in 2015, when the number of people put to death was the highest for two decades, since 192 in 1995.
"The past year has seen the kingdom's human rights record go from bad to worse," London-based Amnesty said in a statement on Friday.
The number of Saudi executions was far behind that of its regional rival Iran.
Non-governmental organisations said in a letter to the United Nations General Assembly that Iran executed at least 830 people between January and November 1 last year.
Saudi Arabia practises a strict Islamic legal code under which murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy are all punishable by death.
AFP
