The Prime Directive shouldn’t have even applied with that. They can’t stop a foreign government from executing their own citizens for stupid things, but trying to execute another nation’s citizens is an international incident and falls under standard international politics. The Federation seems to give Starfleet ship captains ambassadorial powers, so Picard should have started threatening sanctions and making comments about how executing Wes could be considered an act of war.
The Prime Directive shouldn’t have even applied with that. They can’t stop a foreign government from executing their own citizens for stupid things, but trying to execute another nation’s citizens is an international incident and falls under standard international politics. The Federation seems to give Starfleet ship captains ambassadorial powers, so Picard should have started threatening sanctions and making comments about how executing Wes could be considered an act of war.
Probably not, but they said it did, so that’s their problem.