Two Bangladeshi citizens, a man and a woman, have been executed in Saudi Arabia for committing “lewd acts” inside a mosque in Mecca. The death sentence was carried out last October 14, but the news was only made known today. The Bangladesh government said it was not informed before the sentences were carried out and requested information from Saudi Arabia.
The double death sentence
According to the AP, the two citizens were identified as Nazerul Islam Abdul Basir and Siti Akhtar. According to information provided by the Saudi Ministry of Interior, their death sentences were confirmed by the Supreme Court and the competent authority, and a royal decree authorized their execution. The statement explained that the man and woman had been executed “due to the gravity and seriousness of their actions, which violated the sacredness of time and space.” Saudi security authorities arrested the two and, at the end of the investigation, filed charges against them.
According to the ministry, the court found the charges to be true and sentenced them to death according to ta’zir, a form of discretionary punishment under Islamic law, citing the gravity of the crime and the violation of the sanctity of time and place. In the statement, reported by various news agencies, the nature of the offending act is not specified, but according to rumors the man kissed the belly of his pregnant partner while they were in the sacred place. An element that has not yet found official confirmation.
Bangladesh asks for clarification
Meanwhile, according to local media, Bangladeshi authorities say they were informed of the recent execution of two Bangladeshi citizens in the holy city of Mecca only after the event had already occurred. Shama Obaed Islam, a foreign ministry official and minister of state for foreign affairs, said her ministry had sent a letter to the Saudi government requesting “detailed information” regarding the crimes committed and the ongoing legal proceedings. The government will then take care of the repatriation of the bodies.
The two executed Bangladeshi citizens were included in a list of prisoners that Saudi Arabia had shared with Bangladesh, at the request of the Bangladesh Consulate General in Jeddah, but that list did not indicate that the two had been sentenced to death.
Executions in Saudi Arabia
According to the human rights organization Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia is one of the countries in the world that uses the death penalty the most, with 356 executions in 2025, second only to China and Iran. According to the Interior Ministry, the kingdom has executed more than 170 people since the beginning of the year, many of them for drug-related crimes.
This is not the first time that foreign citizens have been executed by Saudi authorities. In 2011, eight Bangladeshi men were publicly executed in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, after being found guilty of the murder of an Egyptian. Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia overturned the death sentence given to a Sri Lankan man for a comment he posted on Facebook, which led to him being convicted of blasphemy.