Saudi Arabia Just Executed a Prince

Being a royal won't save your life in Saudi Arabia if you're convicted of murder. Prince Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, who fatally shot a friend in a "group quarrel" at a desert camp in December 2012, was executed in Riyadh on Tuesday, state media reports, per CNN. It isn't clear how Prince Turki died, though most Saudi executions involve public beheadings using a sword, reports the Guardian. A member of the royal family, which includes thousands of people, says Prince Turki was not a direct descendant of Saudi Arabia's first monarch but belonged to a well-known arm of the family.

"The king has always said that there is no difference in the law between princes and others, and I think that this is clear manifestation of the reality of that fact," he tells the New York Times. "The greatest thing is that the citizen sees the law applied to everyone, and that there are not big people and other small people," adds a Saudi lawyer. This isn't the first time a Saudi royal has been executed: A prince was beheaded in 1975 for assassinating his uncle, King Faisal. A few years later, a princess who married a man other than the one her family had chosen for her was beheaded along with her husband, both accused of adultery. (Another Saudi prince is accused of sex assault in the US.)