How'd you like to live here?

The Saudis have executed six men without ever being sentenced.

Abshir Hassan, a 29-year-old London bus driver, has accused Saudi Arabia of executing his brother Abdel-Fatteh and five other Somalis last week without ever telling them that they had been condemned to death.

Only when they were about to be beheaded did they learn their fate, he told The Independent on Sunday.

Mr Hassan, an Arsenal fan, said he had joked with his brother, who supported Manchester United, about the state of their respective teams in a telephone call last Monday, just hours before Abdel was executed. "The next day Amnesty called and said they had been killed," he said.

A Sudanese beheaded in Saudi Arabia yesterday for drug smuggling brought the total so far this year to 40, more than the country's 33 executions in the whole of 2004.

It sounds like the Saudis are on a roll.