{{Saudi Arabia has criticised world reaction to its beheading a Sri Lankan maid convicted of killing her employer’s baby, SPA reported.}}<\/p>\n
Riyadh “deplores the statements made… over the execution of a Sri Lankan maid who had plotted and killed an infant by suffocating him to death, one week after she arrived in the kingdom,” the government spokesman said.<\/p>\n
Rizana Nafeek was beheaded on Wednesday in a case that sparked widespread international condemnation, including from rights groups which said she was just 17 when she was charged with murdering the baby in 2005.<\/p>\n
Nafeek was found guilty of smothering the infant after an argument with the child’s mother.<\/p>\n
The case soured diplomatic relations with Sri Lanka which on Thursday recalled its ambassador to Saudi Arabia in protest.<\/p>\n
The government spokesman condemned what he called “wrong information on the case,” and denied that the maid was a minor when she committed the crime.<\/p>\n
“As per her passport, she was 21 years old when she committed the crime,” he said, adding that “the kingdom does not allow minors to be brought as workers.”<\/p>\n
He said the authorities had tried hard to convince the baby’s family to accept “blood money,” but they rejected any amnesty and insisted that the maid be executed.<\/p>\n
‘Deep dismay’<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia “respects … all rules and laws and protects the rights of its people and residents, and completely rejects any intervention in its affairs and judicial verdicts, whatever the excuse,” the spokesman said.<\/p>\n
The UN’s human rights body on Friday expressed “deep dismay” at the beheading, and the European Union said it had asked the Saudi authorities to commute the death penalty.<\/p>\n
Human Rights Watch said Nafeek had retracted “a confession” that she said was made under duress. She said the baby accidentally choked to death while drinking from a bottle.<\/p>\n
Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia’s strict version of Sharia law.<\/p>\n
Last year the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom beheaded 76 people, according to an AFP news agency tally based on official figures, while HRW put the number at 69.<\/p>\n
So far in 2013, three people have been executed.<\/p>\n
{Agencies}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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