Execution of Rizana Nafeek:

Govt orders SL envoy in Saudi to return

CHAMIKARA WEERASINGHE

The government yesterday ordered its envoy in Saudi Arabia to return to the country in response to the execution of Sri Lankan migrant worker Rizana Nafeek. External Affairs Ministry Secretary Karunathilaka Amunugama said they expressed displeasure to the Saudi Arabian government for beheading Nafeek on Wednesday.

Nafeek was convicted for murdering an infant boy of her employer. President Mahinda Rajapaksa appealed twice to the Saudi King to release Rizana, who had been held in a Saudi prison for seven years. She was beheaded by Saudi authorities under the Sharia law.

Amunugama said the External Affairs Ministry, through its embassy in Riyadh and lawyers requested Saudi authorities to pardon Nafeek on the grounds that she was under-age and that she was not trained to look after an infant. "We pointed out to Saudi officials that Rizana came to their country as a housemaid. She was not competent or trained to look after a baby, which she had been assigned to her by her employer," he said.