Rizana case returns to Court

Mohammed RASOOLDEEN in Riyadh

Rizana Nafeek, the young Sri Lankan housekeeper who was found guilty and sentenced to death on the charge of murdering an infant in her care, will go back for the fifth time on August 30 to the Court that initially sentenced her in June 2007.

The High Court of Dawadmi, about 220 km west of Riyadh, will once again hear arguments in the case after the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) sent the case back to the provincial High Court, sources at the Sri Lankan Embassy told Arab News yesterday. The date that the SJC sent the case back to Dawadmi is unknown, but on June 9, Chief Justice of the Dawadmi Court Sheikh Abdullah Al-Rosaimi ruled that Nafeek’s lawyer, Kateb Al-Shammary, must file any objections directly to the SJC.

“In response to our objections filed to the SJC, the case has once again been referred to the lower Court which issued the verdict,” Al-Shammary said.

The lawyer said that the Dawadmi Court has been asked to look into the objections regarding the statement made by the interpreter who translated Nafeek’s initial statement to the police from Tamil into Arabic.

“The lower Court has made its decision based on this statement only,” he stressed.

The Sri Lankan Embassy official had consular access to Nafeek on Sunday.

“Nafeek is in sound physical and mental condition and she does not have any complaints of ill-treatment inside the prison,” an official said, adding that she had thanked all those who supported her plea and comforted her.

Nafeek, who is now 20, was arrested on May 22, 2005, shortly after an infant in her care died. She had been working for the family for less than two weeks when, she claims, the baby choked during bottle-feeding. The father, Naif Jiziyan Khalaf Al-Otaibi, says she murdered the child. She was taken to the Dawadmi police station that day where she allegedly signed a murder confession.

In June 2007, Nafeek was sentenced to death by a three-member panel of judges.

A month later, lawyers hired by the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission with the partial financial support of Sri Lankan donors appealed the verdict to the Court of Cassation.