Housemaid executed for 2012 murder
Indonesian sentenced to death by a Saudi court in March 2013 for assault with a cleaver
Indonesian was sentenced to death in March 2013 for killing her sponsor’s four-year-old daughter in Saudi Arabia
An Indonesian domestic helper who was sentenced to death for killing her sponsor’s four-year-old daughter was executed yesterday.
She was the second Indonesian domestic helper to be executed this week after Siti Zainab was put to death on Tuesday in Madinah for stabbing Saudi woman Noura Bint Abdullah Al Morobei in 1999, hitting her head with a kettle, pouring hot water on her body and spraying insecticide on her face, the Saudi Press Agency said.
Khalid Al Shahri, the father of Tala, the victim, said before the execution that his family was not ready to discuss pardoning the helper who was sentenced to death by a Saudi court in March 2013.
The helper who had been with the family for three years used a cleaver to end Tala’s life while her father and mother were at work and two of her sisters were at school.
Wave of sympathy
Tala’s murder in October 2012 shook Saudi Arabia to the core and triggered a wave of sympathy with the family, especially as Tala’s father caused an accident in which two people were killed as he was rushing home to help his distraught wife, a middle school teacher in Yanbu industrial city, after she discovered the crime.
Al Shahri, who worked for oil giant Aramco in the western city of Yanbu, said he received a phone call from his wife informing him that she could not enter their house.
She said she could not get any answer from the domestic helper or Tala even though she pounded on the door and the windows.
Tala’s father rushed home. “However, I had an accident that resulted in the death of a man and injuries to his daughter. I called my wife to tell her that I had an accident and that she needed to act. She called the civil defence and alerted our neighbours,” he said.
The servicemen entered the house through the window and opened the door.
Several women teachers used the tragedy to press the education ministry to open nurseries in schools and help provide day care for their babies and young children.