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KEHELIYA RAMBUKWELLA ALSO PLANS TO TRAVEL TO SAUDI ARABIA TO PLEAD FOR CLEMENCY FROM RIZANA’S EMPLOYERS

By Walter Jayawardhana

Sri Lanka’s Minister of Foreign Employment Promotion, Kheliya Rambukwella will be traveling to Saudi Arabia to request the employer of Rizana Nafeek to grant her clemency over the apparent accidental death of their baby boy two years ago.

A Riyadh based newspaper said that no date has been fixed for Rambukwella’s trip to Saudi Arabia but most probably the mission will be undertaken after Ramdhan.

Rambukwella will be planning to meet the dead baby’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Naif Jhisyan Al Otaibi who earlier at a Dawadami court refused to grant the Sri Lankan teen ager clemency leading to her death sentence by beheading under Saudi law.

Rizana Nafeek, a poor woodcutter’s daughter , from the impoverished Trincomalee District , went to Saudi Arabia to help her family living in a mud hut build a decent house and educate her younger siblings. As she was still a child she let her job agent falsify her passport to misrepresent her as an adult.

The infant died while the inexperienced girl, was bottle feeding it, apparently of choking on milk but she was accused of murder and sentenced to death.

But under Saudi Arabian law the dead infants parent’s should pardon Rizana for her to escape from the death sentence.

An earlier attempt to obtain the parent’s clemency was sought when the Sri Lankan Minister Hussein Bhaila met tribal leaders of the parent’s family to reuest the pardon. A law widely used in Saudi Arabia also allows the convict to pay retribution by paying what is called blood money. Critics have alleged that blood money has become a big business based on greed rather than compassion.

The Sri Lanka embassy in Riyadh with money given by the Hong Kong based Asian Human Rights Commission filed an appeal against the death sentence which is under review now. Two thirds of the money for the appeal came from the Sri Lankan philanthropist Deshamanya Lalith Kotalawela. The money provided by him helped to file a last minute appeal for Rizana one day before the deadline. A prominent philanthropist also has provided a house , a tractor and Rupees 100,000 in cash for Rizana’s parents , the Arab News said.

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