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Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia on Sunday deported a young Saudi journalist wanted in his home country over a Twitter post about the Prophet Mohammed, defying pleas from human rights group who said he faced execution.

Hamza Kashgari, who was detained in Malaysia on Thursday after fleeing Saudi Arabia, has now left the country, national police spokesman Ramli Yoosuf said.

“He was deported to Saudi Arabia,” Ramli told AFP. A government official said Kashgari was escorted back to his home country by Saudi officials.

“He has been deported. He was picked up by Saudi officials at the airport,” said the source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Kashgari fled to Muslim-majority Malaysia after making comments on the microblogging site deemed insulting to the Prophet Mohammed, which triggered outrage and death threats.

Insulting the prophet is considered blasphemous in Islam and is a crime punishable by execution in Saudi Arabia.

Malaysia’s home ministry said on Sunday it intended to send Kashgari back to Saudi Arabia.

“Malaysia has a long-standing arrangement by which individuals wanted by one country are extradited when detained by the other, and [Kashgari] will be repatriated under this arrangement,” it said in a statement.

“The nature of the charges against the individual in this case are a matter for the Saudi Arabian authorities.”

Kashgari’s detention sparked spark outrage from human rights groups, with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch urging Malaysia not to send him back to face severe punishment and possibly a death sentence.

Malaysian human rights lawyer Edmond Bon expressed disappointment over Malaysia’s action to repatriate the Saudi journalist amid death threats against him in his home country.

“It is disappointing that the Malaysian government had chosen to deport him to a potentially life-threatening punishment,” he told AFP.

“Malaysia should have allowed him to seek asylum from the UN refugee agency to a country of his choice,” he added.

Human Rights Watch senior Middle East researcher Christoph Wilcke said Saturday that Malaysia should not be “complicit in sealing Kashgari’s fate by sending him back,” where he would be unlikely to face a fair trial.

“Saudi clerics have already made up their mind that Kashgari is an apostate who must face punishment,” he added.

Malaysia and Saudi Arabia do not have a formal extradition treaty but have close ties as fellow Muslim countries.

Rights groups have said Kashgari, who was detained on Thursday after flying into Malaysia, was en route to New Zealand.

His controversial tweet sparked tens of thousands of responses, according to an online service that tracks Twitter postings in the Arab world.

He tweeted: “I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don’t understand about you.

“I will not pray for you.”

Kashgari apologized but a committee of top clerics branded him “an “infidel” and demanded he be tried in an Islamic court, while a Saudi Facebook page calling for his execution has attracted thousands of followers.

Agence France-Presse