Lawyers confident of saving Rizana

Mohammed RASOOLDEEN in Saudi Arabia

There is a strong possibility of Rizana Nafeek, charged by a court in Dawadmi for murdering a four-month-old infant, being spared the gallows, according to her lawyers.

Khateb Al-Shammary, a law firm retained by the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), filed an appeal against the death sentence handed out to Rizana by a three-member Bench on June 16 and her case is under review at a Court of Appeal.

“In a letter addressed to us, the legal firm has said that there is strong likelihood of Rizana being spared,” Basil Fernando, executive director of AHRC, told Daily News. However, he added that the lawyers believed that she could be given a five-year jail term for “death caused without intention”.

“Sometimes, all these charges may be set aside by the Appeal Court and Rizana could be released unconditionally,” Fernando said, adding that the final verdict is yet to be heard from the court. According to the lawyers the date of the trial for appeal has to be determined by Dawadmi court in due course.

Fernando said due to the steady progress of the case, AHRC had already paid SR100,000 in two installments to the legal firm. The balance SR50,000 will be paid after the final verdict. The money was contributed by Sri Lankans working abroad.

The director also appreciated the efforts made by the Saudi Human Rights Commission to save Rizana from death. “Officials from the Saudi commission have met the relatives of the infant regarding the issue.”

During the month of Ramadan, the lawyers took time in meeting the tribal leaders in Dawadmi to negotiate with the members of the victim’s family. Following a formal Iftar party, the lawyers explained the leaders of Rizana’s plight and told them why Rizana should be pardoned on humanitarian grounds.

A social service women’s group headed by Dr. Kifaya Iftikhar met Rizana on Saturday in the Dawadmi jail.

“ The maid looked cheerful and was anticipating the day of her release,” Iftikhar told Daily News.

Iftikhar said Rizana was worried about the social stigma that she would have to endure because of the case once she was out of jail.

“I do not know how the people in my village would react when they see me back home,” Ifthikar quoted Rizana as saying referring to her conservative rural community near Muttur.

Rizana arrived in Riyadh on May 4, 2005, to work as a maid in the household of Naif Jiziyan Khalaf Al-Otaibi. A few days later, she was transferred to work in her sponsor’s family home in Dawadmi, about 390 km west of Riyadh.

Apart from performing the daily household chores of cleaning, cooking, washing and ironing clothes, Rizana had also been entrusted with the responsibility of looking after the sponsor’s four-month-old infant son, which she was not trained to do.

The incident in which the infant died occurred around 12.30 p.m. on May 22, 2005, while Rizana was bottle-feeding the infant. She had been arrested by Dawadmi police the same day, and had allegedly confessed to killing the child.

Rizana had repeated her confession in open court. However, at the court hearing on February 3, 2007, Rizana retracted her confession and informed the court that her original confession admitting to killing the child had been obtained by the police under duress.

In her statement to the court, the maid also claimed that at the time of her arrival in Saudi Arabia, she was 17 years and that a recruitment agent had falsified her documents and obtained her passport by overstating her true age by six years.

According to Rizana’s passport, her date of birth is stated as February 2, 1982, whilst the certified copy of her birth registration indicates her actual date of birth as February 4, 1988.