Death sentence for maid
ASAUDI court sentenced an Indonesian housemaid to death after she was convicted of decapitating her employers’ four-year-old child, sparking two other deaths, a newspaper reported yesterday.
The maid was “charged with decapitating the girl with a cleaver when her parents were away at work and her sisters were at school”, the Saudi Gazette said, adding that the woman’s lawyer will file an appeal.
The court on Sunday sentenced to death an “Indonesian housemaid who was found guilty of murdering Tala al-Shehri, a four-year-old girl, in (the Red Sea city of) Yanbu last September”, the Englishlanguage daily reported.
The woman was also handed down an eight-month jail term and 200 lashes for attempted suicide after committing the horrific crime, it said.
The victim’s parents have refused to forgive the maid in return for blood money, as allowed under Islamic law, the daily said.
The maid’s lawyer, appointed by the Indonesian mission in Riyadh, said the consulate will initiate legal action in Jakarta against a man who the newspaper said had convinced the woman in text messages to commit the crime.
Al-Watan daily said the girl’s mother, a teacher, found the house locked upon arrival on the day of the crime. The maid refused to open the door, threatening to kill the alreadydead girl.
Alerted, the husband rushed to the house by car and in his panic, had a car crash in which he killed a motorist and injured his six-year-old daughter who later also died of her wounds, Al-Watan said.
In April last year, local media reported that 25 Indonesian maids are on death row in Saudi Arabia and 22 others have been pardoned and sent home.
In June, 2011, Indonesian maid Ruyati binti Sapubi, 54, was beheaded after being convicted of killing her Saudi employer, prompting Indonesia to recall its ambassador in Saudi Arabia for “consultations”.
Indonesian anger over the treatment of its manual labourers in the oil-rich Gulf monarchy has grown after a spate of cases of abuse and killings.
Indonesia had also announced a moratorium on sending migrant workers to Saudi Arabia, where hundreds of thousands of Indonesians toil as maids and labourers.