Miscarriage of justice in "Saudi" Arabia

A Maid’s Execution

Basharat Peer

January 11, 2013

On Wednesday, the Saudi Arabian government beheaded Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan woman who had worked as a maid in the kingdom, holding her responsible for the death of the four-month-old baby of her employer.

Nafeek—the daughter of an impoverished wood-cutter from a village in Trincomalee, in northern Sri Lanka—was a seventeen-year-old in the second week of her job as a maid in the Saudi town of Dawadmi when the child died in her care on May 22, 2005. She said that she had been bottle-feeding him when he choked. Her employer, Naif Al-Otaibi, accused her of strangling the child after an argument with his wife and took her to a local police station, where she was arrested.

Nafeek was tried in the Dawadmi High Court without legal representation. The main evidence against Nafeek was a “confession” she had signed in the police station. On June 16, 2007, the Dawadmi High Court sentenced her to death. After the news of her conviction spread, Fernando Basil, a Sri Lankan expatriate who runs the Hong Kong-based human-rights group Asian Human Rights Commission, hired a Saudi lawyer named Kateb Al Shammari and appealed Nafeek’s conviction.

To lift up her family from desperate poverty, Nafeek had dropped out of high school in Mutter village near Trincomalee in Sri Lanka and moved to Saudi Arabia to work as a maid. Men from domestic-worker recruiting agencies based in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, tour the countryside selling Saudi and Gulf dreams of prosperity to impoverished families. It is a process that is replicated in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Philippines, among other places. Nafeek’s family was convinced, but they faced a technical problem: she was a minor, seventeen years old, born on February 4, 1988. For a fee, the agent made her passport with a falsified date of birth, which listed her as a twenty three year old, born on February 2, 1982. And with that Nafeek became one of the twenty-five million migrant domestic workers in the Middle East, mostly from Asia and Africa.

Although their remittances lift their societies from stark poverty, a foreign maid steps into a world of abuse, overwork, and suspicion. Migrant workers enter Saudi Arabia and most other oil-rich Middle Eastern countries through a system known as kafala, or sponsorship. Kafala has happier roots; it is the Bedouin tradition of granting a stranger temporary refuge and feeding him as long as he wishes. In the modern Arab world, kafala has become an oppressive, non-transferable visa regime, which ensures that a foreign worker can only work for the kafeel, the employer who sponsored his/her visa. On a worker’s arrival, the kafeel generally confiscates his or her passport, and the worker is left with little protection.

In 2008, more than three years after Nafeek was arrested, the lawyer Kateb Al Shammari was able to defend her case in the same Dawadmi High Court that had sentenced her to death. In the course of the off-and-on hearings over the next months, a complicated picture began to emerge.

On the date of the infant’s death, Al-Shammari argued, Nafeek was a minor; he produced her birth certificate to back up his claim. Saudi Arabia, a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, is obliged not to execute a person convicted of a crime when he or she was a minor. (The United States is a signatory, as well, but remains one of the three countries, apart from Somalia and South Sudan, who have not ratified it.)

Al Shammari also argued that Nafeek had not been hired as a nanny, but a general maid, and had no prior training in child care. She was a left alone to feed the child, and didn’t know how to save him when he choked. In an affidavit, Nafeek says that while she was feeding the baby, she saw milk oozing out of his mouth and nose.

Nafeek, who appeared in the court during the hearings, told the judges that her confession at the Dawadmi police station had been made under duress and as a result of a physical assault. Shariah Law, which applies in Saudi Arabia, does not accept statements made under duress. Her lawyer raised questions about the linguistic capability of Mustaffa Saibo, an immigrant worker, who had translated the confession, and sought to cross-examine him. But the judge dismissed that request: according to Saibo’s employer, he had left Saudi Arabia.

If the Saudi authorities conducted an autopsy or any other forensic inquiry to establish the cause of death of the infant, they have kept strangely quiet about it. I found no mention of any medical inquiry in the press coverage of the case and researchers at Human Rights Watch who followed the case hadn’t come across any either. Given the international pressure, one would expect Saudi prosecutors to produce one if they had it.

The Dawadmi High Court had been instructed to hear the case and pass its observations to the Supreme Court. Finally, in October of 2010, the Saudi Supreme Court in Riyadh endorsed the death sentence for Nafeek, holding her guilty of murder.

For the next two years, Nafeek remained on death row. Saudi Law grants the family members of a victim the right to pardon the life of the person who faces death for killing their relative in exchange for blood money. The Al-Otaibis turned down the clemency pleas. So did the Saudi King, despite appeals from the Sri Lankan government.

Nafeek remained in prison in Dawadmi. A Sri Lankan woman, Kifaya Iftikhar, who works as a dentist in Riyadh, would visit her every month or two. “She wasn’t bothered by anyone in the prison. She was fed and treated well there,” Iftikhar told me. The two women developed a routine. As Iftikhar was about to reach Nafeek’s prison, she would call her mother in Sri Lanka and tell her to be ready to speak to the daughter. Inside the prison cell, Iftikhar would call again and let Nafeek speak to her mother. Even after the Supreme Court had confirmed her death sentence, Nafeek was still hopeful. “She didn’t realize that her chances of getting out were very bleak. Even in my last meeting with her a month earlier, she talked about when she would be released,” Iftikhar added. Iftikhar and Nafeek’s family decided against speaking to her about her execution, although there were rumors, for the past month, that the date would be soon.

On Wednesday morning, Iftikhar travelled again from Riyadh to Dawadmi prison to visit Nafeek. As she approached the prison, she called Nafeek’s mother to prepare her for a conversation with her daughter. At the prison gate, the guards stopped Iftikhar. “You can’t meet her today. Please come back tomorrow or some other time,” a guard said. She began her journey back to Riyadh. At a stop in the journey, Iftikhar read about Nafeek’s execution. She couldn’t bring herself to tell Nafeek’s mother about her execution and called one of her neighbours and said, “We have lost her.” (The New Yorker)[/quote]

[quote=Wikipedia]Confession

According to the Asian Human Rights Commission, "Nafeek allegedly signed a confession, but her lawyers argue that the confession was made under duress and, more importantly, Nafeek had no access to a translator during the initial questioning after she was arrested in 2005. Confessions are typically written in Arabic and signed by fingerprint." Nafeek signed an affidavit on 30 January 2007 stating that the confession had been coerced:

"The madam came home at about 1.30 p.m. and after having seen the infant, she assaulted me with slippers and hands and took the infant away. Blood oozed from my nose. Thereafter police came and took me into their custody. I was assaulted at the police station too. They assaulted me with belt and coerced me for a statement stating that I had strangled the infant. They intimidated me that I would have been killed in the event I was adamant not to give a statement to the effect that I strangled the infant and electrocuted, I would be killed.

In these circumstances, I under duress placed my signature on the written paper they gave to me. They took me to another place and asked a question, as I was virtually in a state with loss of memory and in fear and frightened mood, I had happened to tell them that I strangled the infant. In the name of Allah, I swear and aver that I never strangled the infant." (Wikipedia)

A self-styled Islamist preacher accused of beating and torturing his 5-year-old daughter to death was sentenced Monday to eight years in prison and 600 lashes, and was ordered to pay "blood money" to the girl's mother, according to an official with a government-backed human rights body.

A Saudi court in the town of Hawta found Fayhan al-Ghamdi guilty on Monday, Mohammed Almadi of Saudi Arabia's Human Rights Commission told CNN.

"The girl's mother ceded her original request to sentence the father to death," explained Almadi, citing a lawyer for his group who was in the courtroom. "She has since asked for the father to pay her blood money instead, which is her right in the Saudi legal system."

CNN was unable to reach Saudi Arabia's Justice Ministry for comment.

Al-Ghamdi's daughter, Lama, was admitted to King Saud Hospital in Riyadh in March 2012 after suffering extensive injuries, including broken ribs, a crushed skull, bruising and burns. Family, activists and officials say she died of her wounds in late October last year.

The case caused international outrage once it made headlines in February.

"My dear child is dead, and all I want now is justice so I can close my eyes and know she didn't die in vain," the mother, Syeda Mohammed Ali, told CNN in February. "She was brutally tortured in the most shocking ways."

Ali, who is divorced from al-Ghamdi, said Lama's torture occurred while she was staying with her father. She added that al-Ghamdi is now remarried with two more children.

Activists say al-Ghamdi is an Islamist evangelist popular in Saudi Arabia for his televised appearances and for speaking on air about the rewards of repenting to God. But they also say he only fancies himself a cleric and is not recognized by the clerical establishment.

In a conservative country where the death penalty is common, Saudi social media users were quick to express disgust at the news.

"What kind of verdict is this?" tweeted one.

"This is not justice," tweeted another.

Some pointed out what they called a travesty -- that killing Lama garnered al-Ghamdi a punishment similar to that received by a Saudi activist, Raif Badawi, who was recently sentenced to seven years in jail and 600 lashes. Badawi was convicted of violating the nation's anti-cybercrime law by running an unauthorized Web forum.

"This guy, who tortured and killed his daughter, he gets eight years in jail and 600 lashes? You gotta be kidding me -- it's just a joke," said Manal Al-Sharif, a prominent Saudi women's rights activist.

Saudi Twitter users expressed anger by comparing al-Ghamdi's verdict to another recent Saudi case -- one in which it was reported that four Saudi men accused of dancing naked on the roof of a car and posting a video of the incident online were sentenced to as many as 2,000 lashes and up to 10 years in prison, as well as being fined thousands of dollars.

"Somebody who kills his daughter gets eight years in prison but somebody who pulls down their underwear gets 10 years in jail!" wrote one.

Attempts to reach al-Ghamdi and his lawyer via activists and government officials have been unsuccessful.

"It was a very hideous crime. If you look at the pictures of the girl in the hospital, unconscious for eight months before she passed away ... Saudi society never seen anything as ugly as that," al-Sharif said.

Several activists and numerous local media had reported that Lama was also raped, but her mother denied that happened. Ali said that Lama's father was concerned about the virginity of his 5-year-old daughter.

"The father confessed to the abuse, the beating and torturing Lama in the most obnoxious manners," she said last February. One thing she said he did was to burn Lama's rectum.

"These are not some unfounded accusations, but everything is based on the medical examination by the hospital and the team of physicians who treated Lama when she was first admitted," she said.

A teacher who pleaded his innocence to the late King Abdullah, executed

A teacher convicted of sex crimes in Saudi Arabia was publicly beheaded on Monday in the port city of Jeddah, according to official media.

"Mousa bin Saeed Ali al-Zahrani lured several underage girls and kidnapped them. He also threatened them and their relatives and physically assaulted them in his home," the Saudi Press Agency said, citing the interior ministry.

"He raped them, detained them, forced them to drink alcohol, and forced some to watch pornographic material."

The family of Zahrani, however, have pleaded in his innocence and said the teacher was convicted in a “sham trial”. Relatives complained to the late King Abdullah about the case and gained a stay of execution and a promise to re-open the investigation.

But on 23 January, the day Abdullah died, the family said they were notified by police insiders that an order had been reissued for an expedited beheading to take place on Monday.

Zahrani, who was married with six children, posted a video in April 2014 declaring his innocence and asking for a review of the verdict.

“I plead my innocence and swear to God that neither my religion nor my education, knowledge, age, fatherhood or upbringing allow me to even think of committing such an act, which can only come from ribald and mentally ill people,” he said.

“I strongly deny all that I am accused of. It is all unjust fabrication of the truth. The accusations I am being subjected to are not acceptable in our religion. They are malicious and have been magnified and manipulated.”

Friends of the family, who asked to remain anonymous, said the police investigator who arrested Zahrani was a relative of one his alleged victims and demonstrated an “obvious conflict of interest”.

The kingdom has faced constant international criticism over its human rights record, including the use of the death penalty.

The latest beheading brings a total of 16 people executed in 2015 by Saudi authorities. In 2014, 87 people were executed, with 72 taking place between August and December.

An independent expert working on behalf of the United Nations called in September for an immediate moratorium on executions in Saudi Arabia. But the interior ministry insists that the execution of convicts aims "to maintain security and realise justice".

Rape, murder, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death in the kingdom. (Middle East Eye)

In the chilling recording, Bashim, who was found guilty in a Saudi Sharia court of sexually abusing and murdering her seven-year-old step-daughter, is heard protesting her innocence until the very end. "I did not kill. I did not kill," she screams repeatedly.