Saudi Arabia on Sunday defended its execution of a Sri Lankan maid
for the death of an infant in her care and hit back at international
criticism of last week's beheading.
"The Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia categorically rejects any interference in its affairs or in the
provisions of its judiciary under any justifications," a statement
carried by the official Saudi Press Agency read.
Human rights groups and
the Sri Lankan government had lobbied for leniency in the case of Rizana
Nafeek, who was convicted of killing her
employers' son in 2005. The
family said she strangled the boy, Kayed bin Nayef bin Jazyan al-Otaibi,
after being asked to bottle-feed him, but Nafeek said the infant
accidentally choked on milk.
She was executed
Wednesday amid condemnation by human rights groups, the European Union
and the United Nations. But in Sunday's statement, the Saudis said
complaints about her execution "draw on false information about the case
and are issued without full knowledge of the circumstances of the case
itself."
The Saudi statement
denied allegations by Nafeek's advocates that she was a minor at the
time of the boy's death. Sri Lanka's government said she was only 17 at
the time. But the Saudi statement said her official passport showed she
was 21 when the boy died.
"As it is universally
recognized, the passport is an official document issued by her
government," the statement said. "Moreover, the legal regulations of the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia do not allow the recruitment of minors."
Saudi Arabia is a
signatory to the international Convention on the Rights of the Child,
which bars the execution of offenders who were under 18 at the time of
their crime.
The Saudis said Nafeek
had "all rights to have a legal defense," with the Sri Lankan government
monitoring the case. And it said Saudi officials "at the highest
levels" urged the infant's family members to agree to clemency or a
payment of "blood money" in exchange for sparing Nafeek's life, but they
refused.
Nafeek was put to death
Wednesday in Dawadmi, a small, dusty town about 200 kilometers (125
miles) west of Riyadh. Sri Lanka has withdrawn its ambassador to Saudi
Arabia in response to the execution, which Sri Lankan President Mahinda
Rajapaksa had twice asked Saudi King Abdullah to stop.
"We pointed out to Saudi
officials that Rizana came to their country as a housemaid. She was not
competent or trained to look after a baby, which she had been assigned
to her by her employer," External Affairs Secretary Karunatilaka
Amunugama said in a statement released Friday.
Human rights groups said
Nafeek did not have access to a lawyer during her pretrial
interrogation, during which she said she was assaulted and forced to
sign a confession under duress. Philip Luther, director of Amnesty
International's Middle East and North Africa program, said last week
that the case shows the Saudis are "woefully out of step ... with their
international obligations regarding the use of the death penalty."
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was "dismayed" by the execution, the United Nations said last week.
Amnesty says Saudi
Arabia executed at least 79 people in 2012. Of those, 27 were non-Saudis
-- and most of the foreigners executed in recent years were migrant
workers from developing countries, the group said.
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