Another bid to free Rizana

*Ministerial delegation in Saudi

*Will attempt meet with baby's father

Rasika SOMARATHNA

Renewed efforts are on to negotiate a pardon for Rizana Nafeek, with the visit of a high profile Sri Lankan delegation to Saudi Arabia led by Foreign Employment and Welfare Minister Dilan Perera.

Nafeek is in death row in Saudi Arabia for the alleged murder of the baby of her employer. However she maintains that the infant choked while feeding.

Ministry Secretary Colonel Nissanka Wijeratne said yesterday that the minister who is in Saudi Arabia on an official visit regarding employment promotion, would also make efforts to obtain a pardon for Nafeek.

He said that the delegation which also includes Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment chairman Kingsley Ranawaka had gone to Saudi Arabia to hold discussions with authorities on new employment opportunities, strengthening Sri Lankan migrant worker welfare and the introduction of a new insurance scheme for workers.

The Secretary said that they would also seek clemency for Nafeek during Ramadan.

Further details would be known when the delegation returns home during this week, Wijeratne added.

Meanwhile, Arab News reported that the visiting delegation would try to meet a community leader and the infant's father Naif Jiziyan Khalaf Al-Otaibi, who had returned to Riyadh on Sunday following his vacation.

A three-member bench of the High Court in Dawadmi, some 380 kms from Riyadh, convicted Nafeek on June 16, 2007, of killing the baby.

In an appeal made on behalf of the accused, the judgment was upheld by the Supreme Court in Riyadh on September 25 last year.

Nafeek entered the Kingdom aged 17, below the legal recruitment age, to work as a maid using forged documents produced by a local agent.

According to Nafeek's passport, her date of birth is February 2, 1982, while the certified copy of her birth certificate has her actual date of birth as February 4, 1988.

Under Islamic law, the state cannot force the bereaved family to give up their rights.

The government can make reconciliation efforts, but the family must be the one to decide if Nafeek is to be executed or pardoned, Arab News said.