United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was deeply dismayed by the execution of a prominent Shi’ite Muslim cleric and 46 other people in Saudi Arabia and called for calm and restraint.
Saudi Arabia executed cleric Nimr al-Nimr and dozens of al Qaeda members yesterday. The executions stirred sectarian anger across the Middle East.
“Sheik al-Nimr and a number of the other prisoners executed had been convicted following trials that raised serious concerns over the nature of the charges and the fairness of the process,” Ban’s spokesman said in a statement yesterday.
Ban had raised Nimr’s case with Saudi leaders on a number of occasions and urged Saudi Arabia to commute all death sentences that had been imposed, the spokesman said.