Saudi authorities on Friday executed a national convicted of ‘murdering a compatriot’, in the 101st execution of the year in the ultra-conservative kingdom

Saudi authorities on Friday executed a national convicted of ‘murdering a compatriot’, in the 101st execution of the year in the ultra-conservative kingdom, the interior ministry said.

Fahad Abdulhadi al-Dusari was found guilty of shooting dead Mubarak bin Mohammed al-Dusari following a dispute, the ministry said in statement carried by SPA state news agency.

He was executed in the region of Riyadh, it said.

The statement, released by the official SPA news agency, did not elaborate on the method used for the execution, but most of the people sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia are beheaded with the sword.

The Arab kingdom executed a total of 158 people in 2015, a global high.

The alarming rate of executions in the kingdom has prompted Amnesty International to call for an “immediate” moratorium on the practice. Human Rights Watch has also called on the Saudi regime to abolish its “ghastly” beheadings.

 “Saudi Arabia is speeding along in its dogged use of a cruel and inhuman punishment, mindless of justice and human rights,” said Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa head Philip Luther on Friday.

"At this rate, the Kingdom's executioners will soon match or exceed the number of people they put to death last year," he further said, adding that many of those executed were convicted in “deeply unfair trials, as a result of flaws in the justice system.”

The kingdom says most of the executions are related to murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy. However, courts have also handed down death sentences to a number of activists over the past year only for criticizing the government on social media.