ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—Saudi Arabia announced on Saturday that it has executed 47 people for terrorism, among them prominent Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimrits. “Most of those executed were involved in a series of attacks carried out by al Qaeda from 2003-06,” Reuters quoted a statement from the Interior Ministry. The Saudi government published the names of those executed on state TV. The Supreme Court sentenced Sheikh Nimr to death for leading anti-government protests east of the country and the sentence was confirmed in October. The Shiite Sheikh was charged with sedition by Riyadh after he called for the separation of the Shiite-populated provinces of Qatif and al-Ihsaa in 2009. Sheikh Nimr’s death sentence last year brought strong reaction from around the world particularly Iran which asked Riyadh to spare the young Sheikh’s life and warned of dire consequences. "The execution of Sheikh Nimr would have dire consequences for Saudi Arabia," said Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian in a statement last October. The Saudi press also said that among those executed on Saturday was Faris al-Zahrani, an al-Qaeda affiliated militant who was once considered one of the most wanted men by Riyadh.
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