Saudi Arabia beheaded a young Sri Lankan housemaid on Wednesday after rejecting appeals by her home country against her death sentence for the killing of an infant left in her care in 2005, Saudi and Sri Lankan authorities said.
The Saudi Interior Ministry said in a statement run by the official SPA news agency that Rizana Nafeek was executed in the town of Dawadmy, near the capital Riyadh, on Wednesday morning.
Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry said Nafeek was sentenced to death in 2007 after her Saudi employer accused her of killing his infant daughter while she was bottle-feeding. The Saudi Interior Ministry statement said the infant was strangled after a dispute between the maid and the baby's mother.
The Colombo government appealed against the death penalty but the Saudi Supreme Court upheld it in 2010.
"President Mahinda Rajapaksa made a personal appeal on two occasions immediately after the confirmation of the death sentence, and a few days ago to stop the execution and grant a pardon to Miss Rizana Nafeek," the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry said in a statement sent by email.(link)
At least one country doesn't have Wasta and politics when it comes to murderers. KSA is one of the only countries that WILL give you the deserving punishment. If only we had that type of strict judgement in Kuwait then there wouldn't be so much crime.
I don't think I would call this beheading a "deserving punishment." From the accounts I've read, the maid was only a child herself when the "murder" happened. And, she didn't have a competent interpreter to even tell her side of the story. I agree with justice, but I don't think this story is one where justice was found.
ReplyDeleteDo you really know about the circumstances and whether she was a murderess or not. or have you just been assuming based on newspaper reports. You can never know the truth and if a innocent person has been been beheaded and you later find out, you can not give back her life. There is something called life imprisonment which deters crime equally instead of barbaric beheading.
ReplyDeleteShe was a Sri Lankan national and she should have been judged as per SriLankan laws. It was not fair to take her life even if she did a crime or the worst crime in the whole world.
ReplyDeleteEveryone has their won opinion. Fact is a baby is dead and the maid was responsible for it. Get over it, it's not like it was one of your relatives or something and if you care so much then why don't you people give your money to the lower caste people of Sri Lanka and other countries so they don't have to come as maids. If you are not supporting people who have to work as maids then STFU.
ReplyDeleteFact about a baby being dead is true but we cannot assume the maid was responsible for it. There are many many made up cases where the death was caused by the sponsor possibly due to negligence but it will be blamed on the maid to avoid social stigma from the family. I am not saying that I know everything about the case but if the maid was innocent who is there to protect the maid. Also she was a minor at the time of the crime. Where in the world is such a person beheaded. I am totally against capital punishment because with life imprisonment, if the wrong person was punished and the facts come out later, he/she can be later exonerated and released. Not so with beheading. And to provide another perspective have you seen any American or Britisher being beheaded in Saudi Arabia for whatever crime or is it mostly Philipinos, Srilankans, Indians and Pakistanis who are beheaded in Saudi. The president of Sri Lanka personally requested for a pardon because there were serious doubts about the case.
ReplyDeleteIf the lady was one of your relatives you would have thought differently. Your thoughts are reflective of a typical Kuwaiti where you ask a person discussing a issue a rhetorical impossible task like preventing hunger in Africa overnight inorder to silence the argument. The fact that we care about that person does not have anything at all to do with giving money to Srilankan people or anyone else. We do give charity and we try to help all people and don't discriminate against anyone. But that has no bearing on what we are discussing here that it was wrong to behead the lady.
All of these issues begins in the home country. Why isn't the govt in Sri Lanka or any other country allowing women to work as maids doing something for their people so they don't have to work in other countries? Why do governments let their people suffer to the point they travel elsewhere to find work? When some act is put in the newspaper only then do people recognize the problem even though it's too late to help her. Why aren't maid agencies held accountable for bringing underage women to work? As for Westerners not getting beheaded, true not one has been beheaded and why? The US govt wisks them away on freedom flights so they don't stand trial.
ReplyDeleteFor your information there is an American female who was sentenced to 7 years in prison here in Kuwait after being set up for drugs. She has served 5 years and has 2 more years to go. An American employee who got caught with drugs in Dubai was put in jail and no one knows what happened to him. An American was put in jail for 2 years for drugs so don't sit there and say Westerners get off.