New Saudi execution takes year’s tally to 45
RIYADH: A man convicted of murder was beheaded in the Saudi capital Monday, amid a steep rise in the number of executions in the ultraconservative Gulf kingdom this year. The beheading of Saad bin Abdullah al-Jadid, who had shot dead fellow Saudi Abdullah bin
Faraj al-Gahtani, took to 45 the number of executions since January 1, according to an AFP count. Saudi Arabia has carried out around 80 executions annually since 2011, with 87 recorded last year. MOSCOW: Moscow was ready to put its nuclear forces on alert to ensure Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine last year, President Vladimir Putin said in a pre-recorded documentary aired on Sunday.
Putin also said that Russia had saved the life of Ukraine’s former pro-Moscow president, Viktor Yanukovich, who he said had been in danger after ‘revolutionaries’ seized power following weeks of violent street protests in Kiev last year.
“For us it became clear and we received information that there were plans not only for his capture, but, preferably for those who carried out the coup, but also for his physical elimination. As one famous historical figure said: ‘No person, no problem’,” Putin said.
Protests over Yanukovich’s decision to back away from a trade agreement with the European Union in favour of closer ties with Moscow forced him from power in February last year. Yanukovich’s overthrow ultimately prompted Russia to seize and annex the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.
“Of course it wasn’t immediately understandable (what the reaction would be to Crimea’s annexation). Therefore, in the first stages, I had to orient our armed forces. Not just orient, but give direct orders,” he said.
When asked if he had been ready to put Russia’s nuclear forces on alert, he said: “We were ready to do it.” The 62-year-old leader met the president of Kyrgystan at a lavish Tsarist-era palace outside St Petersburg in his first appearance since March 5 His unexplained absence had fuelled rumours he was ill, had been overthrown by the army or had even flown abroad to attend the birth of a love child
In a choreographed double-act,
Kyrgyz prez Almazbek Atambayev also vouched for the Russian leader’s health, saying that
Putin “just now drove me around the grounds”