A Pakistani was executed for smuggling drugs into the Kingdom and a Saudi was beheaded for murdering a compatriot in two different cities on Wednesday.

The Interior Ministry announcement brought the number of executions in the Kingdom this year to nine.

Mohammed Asharaf Ramadan was caught attempting to smuggle into the Kingdom an amount of heroin that he swallowed, the ministry said in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.

He was executed in Riyadh.

In the second case, Saudi national Turki Ahmed Al-Salami was executed in the Asir region after he was convicted of shooting to death Salman Subaykhi, the ministry said.

The Kingdom executed 78 people last year.