“The court also summoned the person (whose name has not been provided) who allegedly acted as an interpreter after Nafeek was arrested on May 22, 2005, shortly after the death of the baby. This person allegedly translated a confession made by Nafeek on the day of her arrest but did not appear in the court yesterday to testify. It is not clear if the judge will issue a contempt of court charge against this unnamed individual.”______________________________
(April 10, Riyadh, Sri Lanka Guardian) Convicted Sri Lankan maid Rizana Nafeek Tuesday appeared before the same judge in Dawadmi who had sentenced her to beheading last year over the death of a four-month-old baby.
Chief Judge Abdullah Abdulaziz Al-Rosaimi ruled that any further objections to his verdict must be presented to the Supreme Judicial Council, which had recently ordered the case back to him for “clarifications”.
“I am happy that the case has been sent back to the court where the original death sentence was given,” Nafeek’s lawyer Khateb Fahad Al-Shammary said before the hearing. In handcuffs and wearing an abaya, the 20-year-old was told she needed to return to the Supreme Judicial Council if her lawyer planned to make further objections to the ruling.
The Kingdom’s highest court received Nafeek’s case after the Court of Cassation (the Saudi court of appeals) last year upheld the death verdict of the Dawadmi court. The appeal to the ruling occurred on July 15, 2007, on the last day the appeal could have been filed.
During yesterday’s hearing, Nafeek appeared in the courtroom with the father of the dead infant, Naif Jiziyan Khalaf Al-Otaibi. Also present at the hearing was Fawzul Rahman, a Tamil-speaking Indian expatriate employee of a local mosque who is acting as Nafeek’s interpreter.
The court also summoned the person (whose name has not been provided) who allegedly acted as an interpreter after Nafeek was arrested on May 22, 2005, shortly after the death of the baby. This person allegedly translated a confession made by Nafeek on the day of her arrest but did not appear in the court yesterday to testify. It is not clear if the judge will issue a contempt of court charge against this unnamed individual.
Some reports on the case have claimed no translator was present at the time Nafeek allegedly made a murder confession. In February 2007 Nafeek retracted this confession and maintained that the baby died from choking during bottle-feeding and that she immediately sought help to save the child when she realized what was happening. Nafeek had been working for the family for about two weeks when the alleged killing took place. Nafeek maintains she had been hired as a cleaning maid but her job ended up involving nursemaid duties as well.
- Sri Lanka Guardian
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