MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Lebanon’s militant movement Hezbollah has accused the United States of covering up Saudi crimes after Riyadh executed a prominent Shiite cleric, Lebanese media said Saturday.
Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr was put to death alongside 46 other convicts for alleged involvement in terrorist activities. Almost all of them were Saudi nationals.
2 January 2016, 12:55 GMT
"We hold the US and its allies…responsible for covering up the kingdom's crimes against it[s] people and those of the region," the Shiite group said in a statement cited by Lebanon’s major news website Naharnet.
The group urged the international community to condemn the killing of the cleric. Shiite communities in Iraq and Iran have already denounced the execution as a crime.
Al-Nimr was a prominent figure during the 2011 protests in the Sunni-ruled monarchy, where Shiite population says they are being discriminated against.
