RIZANA UPDATE 20 JULY 2007

Sri Lanka delegation left for Saudi on ‘Save Rizana Nafeek Mission’

I'll have to eat my words about the government of Sri Lanka washing its hands of Rizana's plight. Deputy Minister Hussein Bhaila is on his way to Saudi to plead her case with the parents of the deceased infant. Riznanas parents and two other Sri Lakan oficials are going also. Lets hope that Rizana will be spared the death penality.

Fri, 2007-07-20 16:04

Colombo, 20 July, (Asiantribune.com): On a ‘Save Rizana Nafeek Mission’ a delegation led by Sri Lanka’s Deputy Minister Hussein Bhaila left for Saudi Arabia today.

http://www.asiantribune.com/index.php?q=node/6618

Deputy Minister Bhaila left today afternoon accompanied by Jammiyathul Ulama Representative Moulavi M.B.M. Zarook and Director General of Middle East and North Africa Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ibrahim Sahib Ansar and the parents (M.S. Sulthan Nazik - father, S.A. Rajeena - mother) of Rizana Nafeek.

Before departing to Saudi Arabia, Deputy Minister Hussein Bhaila speaking to Asian Tribune said that they have lined up meetings with important dignitaries in the country to persuade the Mr and Mrs. Naif Jiziyan Khklafal Otaibi, a Saudi government employee in Riyadh parents of the deceased four month old boy to consider clemency for Rizana Nafeek.

He said he intends to meet the Governor of Riyad, Prince Salman Ibn Abdul Aziz, Head of the Majlis Ash Shura, (Saudi Arabia’s Consultative Council,) Chief Priests of the two Holy Mosques – Mecca and Medina and many others.

Deputy Minister told Asian Tribune that according to his information Rizana Nafeek is in good health. The lawyer who met her has confirmed it. It is further learnt that Rizana has talked to her parents in Sri Lanka several times.

Asian Tribune learnt that Sri Lankan Ambassador in Saudi Arabia has still not yet met Rizana Nafeek a teenage girl from Muthur in the Eastern part of Sri Lanka, who has been condemned to death by beheading. According to sources in the Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry, the Ambassador who is on a recall notice has been given 30th July as the definite date to leave for Sri Lanka.

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, whose wife had a new-born baby boy.

A few days after her arrival in Riyadh, Rizana Nafeek had been transferred by her sponsor to work in his family household in Dawadami, about 390 km west of Riyadh.

A short time after she started working for this family, she was assigned to bottle feed the infant who was by then four months old. Rizana Naffeek had no experience of any sort in caring for such a young infant. She was left alone when bottle feeding the child.

The incident, in which the infant died, had occurred around 12.30 p.m. on 22nd May, 2005, (just 18 days after her arrival in Saudi Arabia), while Rizana Nafeek was bottle feeding the infant. The family of Naif Jiziyan Khalaf Al Otaibi alleged that Sri Lankan housemaid Rizana Naffeek of strangulating the child.

Subsequently, on 16th June, 2007, a three-member panel of judges of the Dawadami High Court, under Shariah law, had found Rizana Nafeek guilty of murder of the four-month old infant son of Mr. Al Otaibi and sentenced her to death by beheading.

The court gave her a period of one month to lodge an appeal, which has been now left up to the Sri Lankan Government to file.

- Asian Tribune –