Death row Lankans' fate further delayed

BY MANJULA Fernando

A decision on the fate of the three Sri Lankans on death row at Riyadh's Al Nayad prison may be further delayed with King Fahd's hospitalisation on Friday due to suspected pneumonia condition.

Foreign Ministry sources said the Sri Lankan government is still awaiting a response from the Saudi authorities on the three Sri Lankans after the Presidential appeal was sent last month soliciting a pardon or a mitigated punishment.

Getting no response to three former appeals, one by the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry to its Saudi counterpart, the second a government to government appeal and the first by the next of kin, President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga wrote a formal appeal last month to the King himself in a bid to save the lives of the three workers.

E.J. Victor Corea, Ranjith de Silva and Sanath Pushpakumara are to be beheaded on alleged charges of theft and their families based on information by the colleagues complained they have been denied a fair trial.

The Asian Human Rights Commission which took up the issue highlighted the fact the trio had not been represented by any lawyer. Instead they have been provided the services of only an interpreter which is highly intolerable in a trial leading to death sentence, the AHRC states.

It said the workers had been found guilty of petty robberies and charges which were not severe as thought before, for which death sentence is way too harsh a punishment.

The workers were initially to be beheaded before April 11.