The defence for the Sri Lankan maid who is facing execution for the alleged murder of her employer’s toddler in Saudi Arabia has appealed to the highest court to acquit the accused citing serious irregularities in the documents produced by the prosecution, Sri Lanka’s envoy in Riyadh A.A.M. Marleen told The Sunday Times.
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| Rizana’s family making a meagre income by selling firewood in Mutur |
His comments on Friday, came a day before the Saudi court was expected to deliver a decision on an appeal filed by Rizana’s lawyers. According to police records in Saudi Arabia, the maid is alleged to have smothered the child to death while both parents were out and she was alone with the toddler. Rizana’s lawyers however argue that the baby choked to death when the inexperienced maid was giving the infant milk from a feeding bottle, Mr. Marleen said in a telephone interview.
According to the documents signed the girl is alleged to have made a confession to the local police on the day of the incident which was recorded in Tamil by a Malalayalee translator from the South Indian state of Kerala and if that is the case the authenticity of the translation is questionable since the two languages are different Mr. Marleen said.
The local law firm Khatab Al Sameeri that is looking after the interests of the maid has also told the prosecution to produce the so-called translator in court -if he/she ever existed, otherwise it appears that the whole confession was trumped up at the local police station and the girl may have endorsed unwittingly an alien document and signed her own death warrant. Further more the envoy, who is also a Presidents Counsel said that in the first instance, the girl’s work contract stated that she was to work only as a maid and not as a baby sitter which requires a certain amount of expertise. “So here again the employer is in the fault for handing over a duty that was not listed in the initial work agreement. In addition, the prosecution has even failed to come up with a possible motive for the alleged killing,” he said.
He said following repeated representations these three issues along with a few others were examined by the country’s highest court yesterday and if the prosecution fails to produce the so-called translator or submit a convincing motive for the alleged murder then the defence will go all out and push for an acquittal.
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| A petition being signed on behalf of Rizana last year |
“This is a matter between life and death and the court is obliged to look into the matter in a serious manner,” Mr. Marleen added.
To make matters worse none of the documents have been made available to the defence and even embassy officials are not allowed into the court to observe the proceedings, he added.
Deputy Foreign Minister Hussein Bhaila who took up Rizana’s case at the start said they had received cooperation from international support groups and that some Rupees four and a half million needed for the maid’s defence came from the Asian Human Rights Commission and many private donors.
He added that instructions had gone out to the embassy in Riyadh to do everything possible to save the girl and also to be in contact with the international media where the widest possible publicity should be given to help her case.Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau (SLFEB) Chairman Kingsley Ranawaka blamed the major part of the issue on the girl’s parents for aiding her to travel abroad on a falsified travel document.
He said it is not the job of the SLFEB to hunt down errant recruitment agencies such as in this case adding that the matter had already been handed over to the police for follow up action. “The police usually do not get back with the findings of their investigations but carry out their prosecutions through the courts,” Mr. Ranawaka said.
It is more than three years now since the child servant Rizana Nafeek was jailed in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the alleged murder of the toddler, a charge she has denied but failed to convince the judges who have already passed the death sentence. Rizana was 17 years old at the time she entered this Arab household to take up employment as a maid and the incident took place when she was just two weeks into the job.
Earlier in 2005 she had left her native village in Mutur in the Trincomalee district for Saudi Arabia on a doctored passport that showed she was of employment age and the authorities have now blamed the parents for encouraging this malpractice .
On a mission to seek clemency
The case against Rizana Nafeek has been postponed for November 5, prompting the Sri Lankan mission in Riyadh to reach out to the deceased child’s parents for clemency, Sri Lanka’s ambassador in Saudi Arabia, A. M. M. Marleen, told The Sunday Times.
Speaking from Riyadh, Mr. Marleen said the mission would meanwhile make every effort to contact the victim’s parents and try to persuade them to drop the murder charges against the maid.
The maid was sentenced to death by two lower courts. The appeal was shifted to Saudi Arabia’s highest court after the defence pointed out several irregularities in documents presented by the prosecution. Capital punishment in Saudi Arabia is usually carried out with a public beheading.
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