The Criminal Court Complex in Riyadh

SAUDI ARABIA: 3 MILITANTS SENTENCED TO DEATH, 26 JAILED ON TERRORISM CHARGES

August 19, 2014: between 18 and 19 August 2014, the Special Criminal Court in Riyadh sentenced three men to death and 26 others to various prison terms on terrorism charges, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
The men were part of a 50-member cell that faced a host of charges, including the 2004 kidnap and murder of a foreigner, plotting to assassinate senior government officials and smuggling heavy weapons into the Kingdom from Iraq.
The court awarded the death penalty to two of the defendants, including the leader of the cell, on 19 August. One defendant was sentenced to death on 18 August.
The court specializing in terror cases also imposed jail terms of two to 25 years on 14 Saudis and a Yemeni in 19 August’s verdict. In a verdict announced the day before, the court sentenced 13 co-defendants, including two Syrians, to four to 30 years in jail.
Impersonating security officers, the militants stopped Paul Marshall Johnson, a 49-year-old American who had worked in the Kingdom for more than a decade, at a fake checkpoint, drugged and abducted him, then beat him to death before beheading him, SPA reported.
They were also alleged to have been involved in an attack on Riyadh police headquarters and to have planned strikes on the US and British embassies in the Saudi capital. They were also convicted of smuggling in heavy weapons from Iraq, launching armed attacks on police, belonging to Al-Qaeda and showing disrespect to Saudi rulers, SPA said. (Sources: SG/SPA, 19/08/2014)