Saudi beheads Pakistani drug-smuggler

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia beheaded a Pakistani man who was arrested as he tried to smuggle drugs into the ultra-conservative kingdom, the interior ministry said on Monday.

"Salman Khan Taj Mohammed, a Pakistani... was arrested as he was caught smuggling a large amount of heroin" into the country, the ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency SPA.

He was interrogated and convicted of drug smuggling, a crime punishable by death according to the kingdom's strict version of Islamic law).

The man was beheaded in Dammam in eastern Saudi Arabia, SPA reported, bringing to five the number of Saudi executions carried out so far in 2012.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights voiced alarm this month at the almost threefold increase in executions in Saudi Arabia last year. (AFP)