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MINOR SRI LANKAN MUSLIM GIRL WAS SENTENCED TO DEATH BY THREE SAUDI JUDGES ON A CONFESSION UNDER DURESS

By Walter Jayawardhana

Miss Rizana Nafeek , a 17 year old Muslim house maid from Sri Lanka has been sentenced to death by a Saudi Arabian court of three judges on a confession obtained under duress by the Saudi Arabian police, the girl has complained.

The poor Muslim girl had been sent to Saudi Arabia misstating her age by a crooked job agency that added six years to her age to make her a house maid to do household chores and her master wanted her to baby sit their four months old infant in addition to the other endless work , for which task she had been never trained, it has been also revealed.

The infant died while the teenager was bottle feeding the baby and the police coerced Nafeek to give a confession that she killed the baby, under which the three Saudi judges sentenced her to death, she has revealed, to Sri Lankan embassy officials.

Obtaining confessions from the accused under duress has become routine work and this is not the first time such confessions have been obtained by the mostly uneducated Police ,of the law, of the oil rich medieval desert kingdom, many organizations and governments have complained.The closest ally of Saudi Arabia , the United States in a human rights reports by the State Department said in 2002 , ‘confessions before a judge almost always are required for criminal conviction- a situation that repeatedly has led prosecuting authorities to coerce confessions from suspects by threats and abuses, “ in Saudi Arabia.

This is not the first time a Sri Lankan citizen is threatened with her life due to the corrupt system of justice in Saudi Arabia. On February 19 2007 Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankans in a public market square and later crucified the blood soaked dead bodies in a macabre act for others to see. One out of the four was not even convicted to a death sentence while the others were. D.D. Ranjith de Silva, F. J. Victor Corea, Sanath Pushpakumara and Sharmila Sangeeth Kumar were the four who were put to death by the “one of the cruelest and unjustifiable justice systems in the world”. The all powerful arbitrary oil rich royal government did not listen to the Sri Lanka government and the rest of the world to spare their lives as it was seen the judgments to behead the three were reached after obtaining coerced confessions by the Saudi Police from them.

Amnesty International USA in a statement dated February 19 2007 said (in Saudi Arabia) “defendants may be convicted solely on the basis of “confessions obtained under duress including torture and other ill treatment and trials invariably fall short of international standards of fair trial.”
Amnesty International in Asia and Pacific referring to Rizana Nafeek said ,
“She had no access to lawyers either during interrogation or at her trial. She has since retracted her confession. She had never given an opportunity to produce her birth certificate to show she was born only in 1988.”

Under international legal obligations of the Saudi government they are expressly prohibited to execute a juvenile since 1997 and the Muslim girl had been convicted two years ago when she was a minor at the age of 17 years. More than that , she had put her signature to a confession written in Arabic, not understood by her.

A press statement issued by the Sri Lanka embassy in Saudi Arabia said, “Miss Rizana Nafeek, holder of Passport No. N. 0331835, arrived in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on 4th May, 2005 to work as a housemaid in the household, of her sponsor, Naif Jiziyan Khalaf Al Otaibi,” and admitted that the passport had been falsified by the job agents and her real date of birth is 4th February, 1988, according to a certified copy of her birth certificate.

The girls parents are unable to retain lawyers to fight the girl’s case in a Saudi court . The embassy release commented on the issue: “ A three-member panel of judges of the Dawadami High Court had found Miss Nafeek guilty of murder of the four-month old infant son of Mr. Al Otaibi and sentenced her to death on 16th June, 2007.

The court had informed that Miss Nafeek could file an appeal against her death sentence, within 1 month of delivery of the judgment.

Since the certified copy of the judgment, as well as copies of the forensic medical report, criminal investigation report and the statements of Miss. Nafeek given to the Police and the Court have not yet been made available to the Embassy, an urgent request has been made to the Saudi authorities, to grant a one month period for filing the appeal against the death sentence on behalf of Miss Nafeek, commencing from the date on which these documents are furnished to the Embassy.

The Embassy has been able to negotiate a reduction in the fee demanded by the law firm in Riyadh, which has agreed to handle the appeal, from Saudi Riyal 250,000 (SL Rs. 7.5 million) to Saudi Riyal 150,000 (SL Rs. 4.5 million). The Embassy of Sri Lanka, which is looking after the interests of Miss Nafeek, is actively pursuing all possible avenues, including the judicial appeal against the death sentence, to save her life.”

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