Exclusive: Some of the men executed in Saudi Arabia claimed their confessions were forced

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Long before Saudi Arabia announced it had carried out one of the largest mass executions in its history earlier this week, some of the men condemned to death had made impassioned pleas to the courts in a bid to save their lives.

Many said they were totally innocent, that their confessions had been written by the same people who had tortured them. Some claimed to have evidence of their abuse at the hands of their interrogators. And one reaffirmed loyalty to King Salman and his son, Mohammed bin Salman, in hopes of getting leniency from the court, trial documents show.

None of these arguments swayed the judges overseeing their trials in 2016, and the suspects were convicted of terror-related crimes and sentenced to death. On Tuesday, Riyadh announced that 37 men had been executed, including three who were minors when the kingdom said they carried out their crimes. One of the men was crucified after his execution, strung up and put on display as a warning to others.

The youngest of the executed men was Abdulkareem al-Hawaj, according to Amnesty International. He was charged with participating in violent protests at the age of 16, and his death sentence sparked an outcry from the United Nations, which had urged the kingdom to overturn the ruling.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/exclusive-some-of-the-men-executed-in-saudi-arabia-claimed-their-confessions-were-forced/ar-BBWj3KA?li=BBnb7Kz

The barbarians Trump wants to give nuclear technology to.

[dameatball]

1. When I was in about the ninth or tenth grade I read a book titled "The Ugly American." It helped to

change my perspective, not only on my political leanings, but on becoming more aware of how some of the rest of the world saw us. It lead me to question who our government supported and why. The basic principles in that book still can be applied today. It would be naïve to think that relationships with allies cannot sometimes have warts. But when we continue to support murderous, repressive regimes we must expect others to see who we have become. Ugly.

[Turbineguy]

4. When that book was written

we at least had the excuse that the murderers we supported were against communism.

[dameatball]

5. Yes, and I believed it at the time also. It is easier to see what went wrong in retrospect, but I

am not saying that America was an evil place. Merely commenting on the fact that, now, in 2019, we sure seem to be on the wrong side of a lot of things.

[Turbineguy]

7. Gerhard Schroder when he was still chancellor

was giving a speech and the term "right side of history" came up. And when he said it, it seemed to light up his face because there had been so many times when Germany was on the wrong side of history and he seemed to realize it at that very moment.

I'm hoping when we get rid of trump, America can get on the right side of history again. Because it's a really nice place to be.

[Blue_Tires]

2. Greenwald and Scahill were unavailable for comment

[hunter]

3. I'm sure they were.

It won't be long now before Saudi refugees, filthy rich and wretchedly poor, overwhelm the rest of the world's ability to comfortably assimilate them.

Religious extremism, and those who exploit it, are far too likely to end the world civilization many of us have become accustomed to.

[struggle4progress]

6. Just because the Saudi ruling class sometimes dismembers living people with bone saws

is no reason to wonder whether ordinary folk there can get fair trials in private! And it's certainly no reason to worry about Jared handing them nuclear technology!

[Ilsa]

8. I'm as afraid of the havoc Jared can

wreak as what his father-in-law can do. Unless he ends up broke or in prison, he has lots of time to create political bonds with murderers like MBS.

[struggle4progress]

9. +