Minister denies reports of Rizana’s execution

by Ananda KANNANGARA

The reports published by a certain section of the media on carrying out the death sentence on Sri Lankan housemaid Rizana Nafeek by the Daw Admi High Courts in Saudi Arabia were denied by Foreign Employment Promotion Minister Dilan Perera yesterday.

Minister Perera told a meeting in Colombo that the Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh had confirmed that there had been no developments in this case recently.

The Saudi Court decision to impose the death sentence on Nafeek was withheld by the Saudi Arabian King following a request by President Mahinda Rajapaksa earlier this year.

Minister Perera told the Sunday Observer that the Government is prepared to pay any amount of `Blood Money’ to the parents of the deceased child to release Rizana.

The Minister said that according to the Sharia law in Saudi Arabia, the Sri Lankan housemaid could now be pardoned only by the parents of the victimised child by giving them `Blood Money’.

Rizana of Mutur was 17 years at the time she was sentenced to death by a Saudi Court in February 2005 for strangling a four-month old baby to death while bottle-feeding.

Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) Chairman, Kingsley Ranawaka said that the Bureau had also pleaded with the Saudi Arabian Government for clemency for Rizana’s life that she had committed the alleged crime when she was 17.