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DEATH ROW MUSLIM GIRLS FATHER WILL APPEAL TO PARENTS OF DEAD BABY TO SAVE HER FROM BEHEADINGBy Walter JayawardhanaMohamed Sultan Nafeek the father of the 19 year old Sri Lankan girl,
who is sentenced to be beheaded in Saudi Arabia said in Colombo that
he was scheduled to fly on June 16 to the desert kingdom to appeal to
the parents of the baby boy who died while the convicted teenager was
bottle feeding him. "I will ask them to pardon my daughter for the sake of Allah,
it was not her intention to kill," Sultan Nafeek said. Under Saudi Arabian law the victims family is entitled to pardon
an accused of a crime and spare the Life from being beheaded. But when the case was taken up in Dawadimi, about 250 miles West of
Riyadh the Saudi employers of Rizana Nafeek refused to pardon the poor
Sri Lankan Muslim girl and she was sentenced to be beheaded under Saudi
Arabian law. When the alleged crime occurred, Rizana was only a minor
of 17 years old and a crooked Sri Lankan job agent had sent her to Saudi
Arabia by distorting her age as minors cannot be sent to foreign countries
for employment under Sri Lanka law. Sources close to Nafeeks family said a Sri lankan Muslim Minister
also will be flying with Rizanas father carrying a special letter
from Sri Lankas president Mahinda Rajapaksa addressed to the King
of Saudi Arabia to intervene in the matter in granting clemency for
the girl. Until the last moment the girls father had not received a visa
to enter Saudi Arabia but he was with high hopes he would be granted
one. Mohamed Sultan Nafeek, a poor wood cutter from the impoverished Eastern
town of Muttur in Sri Lanka, allowed her to go and work in Saudi Arabia
as he was unable to build a decent house for his family and they still
live in a mud hut without any basic amenities. "We live in abject
poverty, we only live in a mud hut which has no proper toilet or a well
to draw water. This is what made Rizana to go to Saudi," he said
while waiting for his visa in Colombo. Rizana was employed as a house maid. But in addition to her household
chores, baby sitting , for which she has had no instructions or training
, was also added to her list of duties. The Hong Kong based Asian Human Rights Commission said the death was
an accident of choking milk because the 17 year old girls inexperience.
She had also faced a trial without any legal representation being provided. She had been asked to sign a confession by the Saudi Police, written
in Arabic, a language she could not read , admitting to the death of
the infant. Now she has recanted her confession, and the Sri Lanka Embassy said
it had been obtained under duress. Her siblings 15, 12, and 10 naturally terrified by the news their loving
sister will be beheaded are praying to Allah that she be saved and having
high hopes she would accompany home with their father, Muslim sources
said. Millions of people in Sri Lanka are crossing their fingers thinking
the poor familys prayers will be answered. If everything fails, like any other common criminal she will be taken
to a market square and beheaded as it had happened before umpteenth
number of times at least during many hundreds of years in the desert
kingdom. |
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