Govt., rights groups slam killing

International human rights groups and the Sri Lankan government are horrified at the execution of Sangeeth Kumara who had only been sentenced to a 15-year jail term by a Saudi Arabian court while they raise concern over the beheading on February 19 of three other Sri Lankans.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch in a statement said that Sangeeth Kumara who was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment was unaware that he had also been condemned to death.

Condemning the execution of the four Sri Lankans, it went onto say that defendants sentenced to death must, under international law have a meaningful right to appeal their sentences but these men didn’t get the most basic safeguards.

“The execution of these four migrants who had been badly beaten and locked up for years is a travesty of justice,” the Human Rights Watch said.

It also added that “officials in the Saudi Justice system failed to ensure that these four Sri Lankans had the basic safeguards required for anyone at a risk of the death penalty. The judicial procedures were not transparent and the defendants had no adequate means for their defence”.

The London-based Amnesty International said “the men received an unfair trial and were sentenced in the absence of legal and consular representation. The men’s families and Sri Lankan authorities were not informed beforehand of their executions.”

Saudi Arabia’s secretive judicial system is such that in many cases of those sentenced to death their families are not informed of their charges or the progress of the legal proceedings against them.

Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama on Friday at a meeting with Sultan Al Dakhel, Charge d’ Affaires of the Saudi Arabian Embassy, here raised concern over the execution of Sangeeth Kumara.

The Minister also expressed concern over not conveying information to the Sri Lankan embassy in Riyadh about the execution of the four men while also adding that even after the execution, there had been no communication conveyed by the authorities to the Sri Lankan embassy in Riyadh.

Minister A.H.M. Fowzie who went to Saudi Arabia in May last year with an appeal from the government to release the four Sri Lankans said that Saudi king Abdullah Ibn Abdul Azeez pledged to take the matter up with authorities concerned but added that in Saudi Arabia the king did not interfere with the judiciary.