A Saudi court ordered the bodies of four Sri Lankans to be displayed in a public square after being beheaded for armed robbery, according to a government statement.
However it remains unclear if such an exhibition took place, and the Sri Lanka's foreign ministry said yesterday it was trying to determine if the display had occurred.
The beheaded bodies are only displayed when there is a specific court order in cases considered particularly offensive, such as armed robbery.
The four men were convicted of "forming a criminal gang which robbed a number of companies and threatened accountants and workers with weapons, shooting one of them and stealing his car," the official Saudi Press Agency had reported on Monday.
The Sri Lankan government said in a media release it had appealed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for clemency twice.
A report by Amnesty International said that besides the execution of the four Sri Lankans, six foreigners have been executed this year - three Pakistanis, two Iraqis and one Nigerian.
Seven Saudi Arabians, including one woman, have also been executed.
In 2006, 86 men and two women were executed, half of them foreign nationals, the report said.
AP