Saudi Arabia Sentences Four to Death for Alleged Ties to Iran

A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced four individuals to death for allegedly having 'connections with Iran' and planning to assassinate 'prominent figures' in the country. According to the state television channel Al-Ekhbariya, the Saudi criminal court found these four guilty of forming a 'terrorist cell' for Iran. The report states that these individuals had received training in 'a camp in Iran' to carry out assassinations of 'prominent figures' in Saudi Arabia. Riyadh did not disclose the identities of these individuals or the 'prominent figures' they allegedly intended to assassinate. In December 2016, a Saudi court also sentenced 15 people to death for 'espionage' for Iran. Iran and Saudi Arabia, as two major Shia and Sunni powers in the Islamic world, have a long-standing rivalry and are currently opposed to each other in Middle Eastern crises, from Syria to Yemen. The crisis between the two countries intensified with the execution of Sheikh Nimr, a prominent Shia cleric in Saudi Arabia, and following attacks by forces known as Hezbollah on Saudi diplomatic sites in Tehran and Mashhad, relations between the two countries were severed. Sheikh Nimr, who criticized Saudi intervention in Yemen and other regional countries and called for internal reforms, was arrested in 2012 and sentenced to death on October 15, 2015, by a Saudi criminal court for 'actions against national security and armed rebellion.' Nimr condemned the labeling of Hezbollah's actions as terrorism and regarded its Secretary-General, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, as a source of pride for Arabs and Muslims. In August 2017, a Saudi court sentenced Ayatollah Sheikh Hossein Razi, a Shia cleric, to 13 years in prison. Human rights activists have repeatedly criticized the trial process for defendants in Saudi Arabia, deeming it 'unfair.'