The United Kingdom has exported more than £4.6billion worth of arms to Nigeria and other countries, which still carry out the death penalty last year.
Others are Afghanistan, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Uganda, UAE and Vietnam.
Britain also approved more than £109million of arms export licences to Egypt for assault rifles, machine guns and £40million worth of components for military vehicles, the figures show.
Statistics by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) revealed that Britain sells arms to more than two thirds of the 58 countries which currently execute people, despite the government’s officially stated position of opposing the death penalty in “all circumstances”.
The group which compiled the statistics noted that the figures exposed “the hypocrisy at the heart of UK foreign policy” and accused the government of helping to support despotic regimes through the sale of arms.
By far the UK’s biggest arms customer was Saudi Arabia, which had £2.8billionn of export licences granted in 2015.
They included licences for aircraft, helicopters, drones and armoured vehicles as well as grenades, bombs and missiles.
The Government’s continued sale of arms to the Saudis has been severely criticised given its ongoing military operation in Yemen, amid concerns that British-supplied weapons may have been used to hit civilian targets.
The conservative kingdom recently carried its 95th execution of the year and is on course to behead twice as many people this year as it did in 2015.
Overall, it was further revealed that UK approved export licences for 40 of the 58 countries that still use the death penalty, the figures show.
Andrew Smith, a researcher at CAAT who compiled the statistics, said: “The UK has rightfully taken a strong line against the death penalty, but it has consistently armed governments and regimes around the world that still practise it”.
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