Saudi Arabia says it executes American citizen convicted of killing his father

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Saudi Arabia on Wednesday executed an American citizen who had been convicted of killing his father.

The Interior Ministry identified the executed man as Bishoy Sharif Naji Naseef and said he beat and then strangled his Egyptian father to death. It also said Naseef used narcotics, mutilated his father's body after his slaying and attempted to kill another person before his arrest.

The statement did not identify how Naseef was executed. However, Saudi Arabia typically beheads those sentenced to death.

A lawyer for Naseef could not be immediately identified. It wasn't known if Naseef had a home address in the United States.

Vedant Patel, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, said that American diplomats visited Naseef in July and that he hadn't been identified as being wrongfully detained prior to his execution.

Saudi Arabia ranks among the world's top executioners behind China and Iran in 2022, according to statistics from Amnesty International. Though executions slowed during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, they've surged in recent years. In March 2022, the kingdom executed 81 people on the same day, the largest known mass execution carried out in the kingdom in its modern history.