Will Rizana Survive?

The case of Rizana Nafeek, the Sri Lankan maid who was found guilty of the death of a Saudi infant in May 2005, has taken a new turn. The court in Dawadmi where Rizana was initially tried has referred the case once again to the Supreme Judicial Council in Riyadh.


The referral is accompanied by a new statement from the police who took Rizana’s alleged confession, embassy officials said on yesterday. No details about the new statement were available. The case has been bouncing between courts over the past year. It first arrived in the high court in Riyadh in March 2008.

Rizana arrived on May 4, 2005, three months after her 17th birthday, to work for Naif Jiziyan Khalaf Al-Otaibi and his family in Dawadmi, 390km west of Riyadh. She was trafficked into the country to work as a housemaid on a passport that falsely stated her age as 23. The incident in which the infant died occurred around 12:30 p.m. on May 22, 2005, while she was bottle-feeding the child. Rizana was sentenced to death on 16th June 2008 for a murder committed while she was 17 years old. The parents of the infant accused her of murdering the child; she claims the infant choked while being bottle-fed.

In addition to the issue of Rizana’s age, the legal representative says she was assigned the duties of a nanny and assigned the care of a newborn in addition to her duties as a housekeeper. The lawyer also says that since Rizana had only been on the job for seven days, there was not enough time for her to harbor ill will that would cause her, as the parents of the dead baby allege, to murder of the newborn out of anger and vengeance.

Rizana maintains that her confession is invalid because it was produced under duress and with inadequate translation.