Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the compliance with international law of the reported plan by the Government of Saudi Arabia to execute Murtaja Qureiris at the age of 18 for alleged offences committed when he was 10 years old.

We are closely monitoring this case. The Embassy team in Riyadh have raised the issue of the execution of minors in Saudi Arabia four times in the last month. We will raise our concerns regarding Mr Qureiris’s case with the Saudi authorities. The Embassy team have applied for permission to attend any further trial sessions.

It is a longstanding practice of the British Government to oppose the death penalty, in all circumstances, as a matter of principle, in every country, including Saudi Arabia. This is in line with the minimum standards set out in the EU Guidelines on the Death Penalty of 2008 and the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Arab Charter on Human Rights.