Fabricated to draw sympathy:

Embassy denies housemaid’s torture tale

Athapattu Bandara

Sri Lankan embassy in Kuwait denied the accusation made by a Sri Lankan housemaid that she was tortured by nails driven into her body by the job agent and a Sri Lankan woman attached to the embassy.

Her story is fabricated and she had tried to get the sympathy of her employers and the embassy by uttering falsehoods and showing fake photographs, the embassy said in a statement said.

Sri Lankan Ambassador in Kuwait C. A .H. M. Wijerathna was responding to Foreign Employment Minister Dilan Perera who wanted him to inquire into the allegation that a Sri Lankan housemaid who returned recently and was admitted to hospital saying that she was beaten and nailed by embassy officials and her employers.

The minister made a request to hold an inquiry and ascertain the truth. The embassy in its observation found that the story of the Sri Lankan housemaid was fabricated and she had attempted to draw sympathy towards her at every occasion with false facts.

The ambassador said that the initial investigation revealed that she had pretended that her husband was to undergo an immediate surgery on his hands and she needed to return to the country.

She had displayed a fake photograph of a man without one hand, he said. From the beginning she had tried to get the sympathy of everybody, the statement it further said.

Therefore, the authorities took a decision to send her back to Sri Lanka by paying two years’ salary with an additional 200 dinars. Though she had signed a two year agreement she received this amnesty due to her constant weeping that her husband should undergo an immediate surgery, the embassy further said.

The Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau (SLFEB) has decided to conduct a special police investigation with regard to the facts of the case SLFEB General Manager Harischandra Batagoda said.