Tehran: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Wednesday condemned the silence of US President Trump’s govt on Saudi Arabia’s mass execution of 37 people convicted of terror. “After a wink at the dismembering of a journalist, not a whisper from the Trump administration when Saudi Arabia beheads 37 men in one day — even crucifying one two days after Easter,” Zarif said on Twitter. He was referring to the murder of Saudi journalist and regime critic Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 in the Saudi mission in Istanbul.
Rights group Amnesty International said most executed were Shia men “convicted after sham trials that violated international fair trial standards (and) which relied on confessions extracted through torture”. 11 of the executed were convicted of spying for Shia majority Iran, while 14 others were sentenced in anti-govt protests between 2011 and 2012 in the Eastern Province.