A mother in Egypt speaks of her son’s final days on death row in Saudi Arabia, where he was executed for drug-related charges in what human rights organizations describe as a deeply flawed judicial process.
For four years, daily phone calls were her only link to her 28-year-old son, Essam. From her home in Hurghada, she would listen to his hopes of returning home, while carefully avoiding questions about his prison conditions. She clung to the belief he would be spared, even as Saudi Arabia carried out a record number of executions last year.
Her son was arrested after being found in the Red Sea near a floating tire containing narcotics. According to his mother, he was a fisherman coerced into smuggling and later forced into a confession. She insists he was a carrier, not a dealer, and that his death sentence was unjust. “The judge showed no mercy,” she said. “Punish him for the crime, but this was not a crime deserving of death.”
While Saudi Arabia promotes a modernizing image on the global stage, the execution of hundreds of individuals—often foreign nationals from impoverished backgrounds—for non-violent drug offenses has drawn limited international attention. Many are sentenced for trafficking small quantities in exchange for minimal sums of money.
Families of those condemned frequently report receiving little assistance from their embassies and being unable to afford legal representation. “We are poor. We live day by day,” the mother explained. Human rights groups have repeatedly criticized such trials as grossly unfair, often relying on confessions obtained under duress.
In his final days, held in a prison block inmates called the “death wing,” Essam told his mother they went without seeing sunlight. After his appeal failed, he urged her to save any remaining money for his sisters. “If I am destined to die, I will die,” he told her.
On the morning of December 16, she received a call—not from her son, but from his cellmate. Guards had taken Essam away hours earlier. His last words were a request for forgiveness from his family.
A clemency petition filed last November pointed to serious inconsistencies in his statements and noted he had a history of severe depression, having been treated at a mental health facility in Egypt prior to his arrest. While imprisoned, he was hospitalized after refusing food. “He told me he wanted to die,” his mother recalled.
Now in mourning, she has been denied the chance to bury her son. Saudi authorities do not return the bodies of those executed or disclose their burial locations.
In a recent statement, Saudi officials affirmed their commitment to imposing the “severest penalties” against drug smuggling, citing the protection of society and youth. For one mother in Egypt, however, the price of that policy was her son’s life.