SENTENCED TO DEATH BY STONING: SL HIRES LAWYERS TO FILE APPEAL

The Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau has hired lawyers to file an appeal on behalf of the Sri Lankan maid, who has been sentenced to death by stoning in Saudi Arabia. Spokesman for the Bureau Upul Deshapriya, told Reuters that the bureau had called on the Saudi Arabian government to pardon the woman.

The Sri Lankan maid has been sentenced to death by stoning in Saudi Arabia for adultery but her partner with whom she had an affair is sentenced to 100 lashes according to Sharia law.

“She has accepted the crime four times in the Courts,” Deshapriya said. The Bureau stated that the Saudi Court has ordered that the man, a bachelor be whipped as a punishment. “The appeal is going on”.

However, a Ministry official said that the Sri Lankan Embassy in Saudi Arabia had contacted the Saudi authorities to ascertain whether there would be a possibility of reconsidering the verdict. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia follows Sharia Law, with a wide range of crimes such as adultery, drug smuggling and witchcraft all carrying the death penalty. Stoning, a form of execution where a group throws stones at a person buried waist or chest deep in the ground until they are dead, is still carried out in parts of the Muslim world.

Saudi Arabia is also planning to execute 55 other people convicted of terrorism. Foreigners, mostly guest workers from poor countries, are particularly vulnerable as they typically do not know Arabic and are denied adequate translation in court, Amnesty said. In 2013, another Sri Lankan maid was beheaded in Saudi Arabia for killing an infant, despite repeated appeals by Colombo against her death sentence.