Abdullah al-Howaiti was 14 years old when he was arrested in 2017 on charges of murder and armed robbery. The Supreme Court had overturned his original conviction last year. He was first sentenced to death in 2019, after he was convicted by a court in Tabuk province of shooting dead a policeman while robbing a jewellery shop. Five other defendants were handed 15-year prison terms for allegedly aiding and abetting the crimes. All six had pleaded not guilty, telling the judge that interrogators coerced their ‘confessions’ through torture or the threat of it. The judge also ignored CCTV footage showing that Howaiti was not near the jewellers’ shop at the time of the crime. The court of appeal in Tabuk upheld the conviction in January 2021, but the Supreme Court threw it out in November and ordered a retrial.