In his weekly presser on Tuesday, Mehmanparast told reporters at the Foreign Ministry that Iran cannot ignore the issue of the executions as “no country, neither Saudi Arabia nor any other state, has a right to treat our nationals this way. This is a very grave issue and we will pursue the subject legally and internationally.”
The senior Foreign Ministry official said Iran will dispatch a delegation of legal experts and diplomats from the ministry along with the lawyers of the executed and detained Iranians in Saudi Arabia “and the Saudi government must be answerable for its actions.”
On April 18, Press TV reported that Saudi officials had executed eight Iranian sailors in the eastern city of Dammam without any legal proceedings.
According to the Saudi Al-Tagheer news channel, the executions were carried out on April 15 on the order of the Saudi Interior Ministry. Mehmanparast further said that the Saudi officials’ ‘inhumane’ move ran counter to and flouted internationals norms as the Iranian sailors were denied consular access.
On May 30, the Persian-language Tabnak news website reported that Saudi officials in Dammam had executed 10 more Iranian citizens.
The website added that a total of 25 Iranians were kept at Dammam prison and 18 of them were executed in two stages after reports of their ‘severe torture.’
The prisoners were Iranian sailors who were arrested on a fishing boat in international waters 70 miles off the coast of Saudi Arabia six years ago on charges of ‘drug possession.’
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Publish Date: 26 June 2012 - 13:54
Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has reiterated Tehran’s determination to hold Saudi officials accountable for executing some Iranian nationals in breach of international conventions.