Rizana Nafeek tells Court:

First confession taken under duress, physical assault

Mohammed Rasoooldeen in Riyadh

Sri Lankan maid Rizana Nafeek, who was found guilty of the death of a Saudi infant in May 2005, told a court in Dawadmi on Sunday that her first confession was taken under duress and physical assault. Nafeek made this statement before a three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Abdullah Al-Rosaimi at a court in Dawadmi. The maid’s statement in court was translated by Abdul Careem, an Indian electrician who acted as an interpreter yesterday.

Nafeek told the bench that she was assaulted and was forced to confess to the murder. In July, the court in Dawadmi where Nafeek was initially tried, referred the case once again to a High Court in Riyadh which referred again to the court of origin for further clarifications.

The case has been bouncing between courts over the past year. It first arrived in the High Court in Riyadh in March 2008. In November the High Court announced that a key witness to what happened on the day Nafeek allegedly made her confession, the Indian translator, had left the Kingdom and would be unavailable for testimony. For Sunday’s hearing, the court issued summons to the Police Investigating Officer, to the local Religious Police to be present in court.

The lawyer who appeared on behalf of the maid Khateb Al-Shammary, said Nafeek was trafficked into the country to work as a housemaid on a passport that falsely stated her age as 23.

Her original birth certificate indicates she was 17 at the time, which would have barred her from work in the Kingdom.

The act not only violated the Kingdom’s own laws against utilizing under-age labour, but it also constitutes human trafficking on the part of the recruiter who sent her to the Kingdom.

In addition to the issue of Nafeek’s age, the legal representative says she was assigned the duties of a nanny and assigned the care of a newborn in addition to her duties as a housekeeper.

The lawyer also says that since Nafeek had only been on the job for seven days, there was not enough time for her to harbour ill will that would cause her, as the parents of the dead baby allege, to murder of the newborn out of anger and vengeance.

A court advocate for the accused from the Sri Lanka Embassy expressed concern that Nafeek had been in prison for more than four years while the system sought to dispense justice.

We visit her often and will console her until a final verdict is given, said the official who did not want to be named.

Nafeek was spared execution last year on the last day of the deadline for appeal when she was assigned a lawyer, retained with the help of the Asian Human Rights Commission and the Lankan community in Saudi Arabia.

The father of the deceased infant, Naif Jiziyan Khalaf Al-Otaibi, who has regularly appeared for these hearings, was not summoned to court this time.

The case was postponed for further hearing on December 21. First Secretary of the Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh Sarath Kumara, and mission’s coordinator Abdul Lateef Mohammed Jabir were present at the court to look after the interests of the accused.