MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Documents seen by the Sunday publication are said to name Riyadh a "priority market" encouraging British businesses to bid for Saudi health, security, defense and justice contracts.
"It’s becoming increasingly clear that ministers are bent on ever-closer ties with the world’s most notorious human rights abusers," the Reprieve non-profit’s death penalty team director, Maya Foa, told The Observer.
Documents seen by the Sunday publication are said to name Riyadh a "priority market" encouraging British businesses to bid for Saudi health, security, defense and justice contracts.
Other agreements include a UK National College of Policing secret memorandum of understanding to help modernize the Saudi Interior Ministry and a 2011 healthcare memorandum.
Foa called on UK ministers to "urgently come clean" about the true extent of London’s investment partnership with Riyadh.
Another global outcry broke out against the pending death sentences of three Saudi youths who were arrested at the age of 17 in 2012. Last year, the three Shiite activists were sentenced to death and are thought to have been moved to solitary confinement this month.
Amnesty International calculates that 137 Saudi citizens have been executed in 2015, up from 90 last year. The group’s ranking places Saudi Arabia as the third-highest state executioner in the world.
