RIYADH – The Saudi government deplored Sunday the criticism and misleading statements made by a number of international agencies over Rizana Nafeek's execution last Wednesday. Saudi Arabia “deplores the statements made over the execution of the Sri Lankan maid who had plotted and killed her employer's four-month-old baby by suffocating him to death, one week after she arrived in the Kingdom in 2005,” a government source told the Saudi Press Agency (SPA). The government source condemned what he called “wrong information on the case,” and denied that the maid was a minor when she committed the crime. “As per her passport, she was 21 years old when she committed the crime,” he said, adding that “the Kingdom does not allow minors to be brought as workers.” “After the murder was fully investigated, the case was referred to the court and the housemaid was given her full legal rights, with a lawyer defending her. The Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh followed up on her case,” the source said. The Sri Lankan Prosecutor General and other officials who visited the Kingdom at the time were provided with full details about the circumstances and the legal procedures related to the case, the source added.
He said the authorities had tried hard to convince the baby's family to accept “blood money,” but they rejected any amnesty and insisted that the maid be executed. Saudi Arabia “respects... all rules and laws and protects the rights of its people and residents, and completely rejects any intervention in its affairs and judicial verdicts, whatever the excuse,” the source said. The UN's human rights body on Friday expressed “deep dismay” at the execution, and the European Union said it had asked the Saudi authorities to commute the death penalty. – SG
