Indonesian maid beheaded in Saudi Arabia

A Burmese woman is beheaded in public in Saudi Arabia in January 2015.

Saudi Arabia on Tuesday beheaded an Indonesian domestic worker who knifed to death a Saudi woman described in press reports as her employer.

The interior ministry said Siti Zainab was executed after being convicted of stabbing and beating Saudi woman Noura al-Morobei to death.

The sentence was carried out on Tuesday in the Muslim holy city of Medina, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

Zainab's execution brings to 60 the number of foreigners and Saudis executed this year, according to an AFP tally.

Jakarta's embassy in Riyadh declined to comment on her case.

According to Indonesian newspaper Kompas, Zainab was convicted of killing her employer in 1999, despite concerns about her mental health.

Her execution was delayed until the victim's children were old enough to decide whether the punishment should go ahead, the Saudi interior ministry said.

Indonesia four years ago announced a moratorium on sending migrant workers to the kingdom, but the Saudi newspaper Arab News reported in January that negotiations between the two countries over the recruitment of domestics had resumed.

Rights groups regularly denounce abuse and even torture of impoverished women from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Nepal who work as maids in Gulf countries.

Saudi Arabia in 2013 passed new rules that grant domestic workers one day's rest a week and guarantee the payment of their salaries.

Drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy, homosexuality and armed robbery are all punishable by death under the kingdom's strict version of Islamic sharia law.

Saudi Arabia has seen a surge in executions this year, compared with the 87 death sentences carried out in 2014.

Source: Agence-France Presse, April 14, 2015

Shock as Saudis behead RI woman

Siti Zaenab

Efforts by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to secure reprieves for hundreds of Indonesians on death row in overseas prisons met a sudden setback on Tuesday with the unexpected execution of a mentally ill Indonesian worker in Saudi Arabia.

The Foreign Ministry announced that migrant worker Siti Zaenab Duhri Rupa was executed in the holy city of Medina.

“The Indonesian government expresses deep condolences to her loved ones and hopes she receives the best place in heaven,” the ministry said.

Jakarta has filed a protest with Riyadh for executing Siti without any prior notification.

“The government filed a protest with the Saudi Arabian government for not informing Indonesian representatives in Saudi Arabia, or the convict’s family, about the timing of the execution,” the ministry said.

Siti, a 47-year-old mother-of-two from Bangkalan in Madura Island, East Java, was arrested in October 1999 for stabbing to death her Saudi employer Nourah binti Abdullah Duhem al-Maruba.

She had gone to work in the kingdom in 1997. It was reported later that at the time of the murder Siti was mentally ill.

She was sentenced to death in January 2001, but her execution was delayed until the victim’s children were old enough to decide whether Siti could be pardoned.

In 2013, Walid bin Abdullah bin Muhsin al-Ahmadi, Nourah’s youngest son, told the court he refused to pardon Siti.

The execution was carried out despite a plea for clemency written by Jokowi to the Saudi Arabian king earlier this year.

Two of his predecessors, the late president Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid and president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, also sent similar letters in 2000 and 2011 respectively.

“The government has done its best to prevent Siti from being executed by asking for a pardon from the victim’s family members. The government also appointed professional lawyer Khudran al-Zahrani to provide legal assistance to Siti in every trial hearing,” the ministry said.

Last month, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi directly requested Saudi Arabia’s deputy foreign minister to approach and ask for forgiveness from the victim’s family.

“The government also offered diyat [blood money] worth Rp 2 billion [US$154,410],” it added.

According to Saudi Arabian law, people sentenced to death for murder can be reprieved from execution provided the victim’s family grants a pardon and the convict pays diyat. An edict on diyat issued by Saudi Arabian clerics set the amount at 200,000 riyals ($4,743) for a female convict and 400,000 riyals for a male.

Last year, the government paid blood money to save former migrant worker Satinah from being beheaded in Saudi Arabia.

Satinah had been convicted of killing her employer Nura al-Gharib and stealing 37,970 riyals from her home in Gaseem in July, 2007.

International rights groups have repeatedly voiced concern over the execution of convicts in Saudi Arabia.

Amnesty International (AI), for example, had urged the Saudi government to do whatever it could to halt the execution of Siti.

“We oppose the death penalty regardless of the situation,” AI said regarding Siti’s death sentence.

The government issued a moratorium on sending migrant workers to the kingdom four years ago as part of the government’s demand for the Saudi government to provide better salaries and protection for the workers.

The directive followed the case of Ruyati Satubi, a 54-year-old migrant worker who was beheaded in June 2011 for killing her Saudi employer.

The case triggered public anger after the government said it had only found out about the case after the execution.

Efforts to reprieve Indonesian convicts from execution overseas are likely to get harder as the government has been adamant about executing death-row drug convicts, many of them foreigners, as part of Indonesia’s “war on drugs”.

Six drug convicts were executed in January and 10 more, including two Australian members of the “Bali Nine” drug ring, are expected to face the firing squad soon, nine of them having been moved to Nusakambangan prison island off the coast of Cilacap in Central Java.

The series of executions has caused outrage in the international community, with the UN human rights office saying that the executions would weaken Indonesia’s position when arguing on behalf of its own nationals facing the death penalty abroad.

According to Foreign Ministry data, there are 299 Indonesians facing execution overseas, 57 percent of them for drug offenses.

Source: The Jakarta Post, April 15, 2015

Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com

California | Becerra vows to extend moratorium despite past support for capital punishment

SACRAMENTO—Democrat Xavier Becerra defended the death penalty while serving as California’s attorney general, a punishment his office actively sought in the case of a gunman convicted of an Orange County mass shooting, but as the front-running candidate for governor, he has vowed to block executions if elected in November. Becerra said he will extend the blanket reprieve for all death row inmates that Gov. Gavin Newsom enacted by executive order in 2019, saying he supported “moving our state away from a costly, flawed system that disproportionately impacts Black and brown communities and too often gets it wrong.”

Iran | Afghan Citizen Executed in Wheelchair Due to Severe Mobility Disability

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Iranian authorities have reportedly executed an Afghan citizen, identified as Valijan Nourzay, at the central prison in Rafsanjan, according to the human rights organization Hengaw. Hengaw said in a statement on Sunday, September 6, that Nourzay was executed early Wednesday last week at Rafsanjan Central Prison. According to the organization, Nourzay had a severe mobility disability and was executed while in a wheelchair. Hengaw, citing informed sources, reported that Nourzay had been pursued by Iranian authorities three years ago over an alleged murder. He was reportedly seriously wounded after Iranian security forces opened fire on him in Rafsanjan before being arrested and later sentenced to death.

Egypt TV presenter and 11 others sentenced to death in major drugs case

Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa and 11 others have been sentenced to death by hanging after being convicted of drug trafficking and rape, while nine defendants received life sentences and seven were acquitted. Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa, 39, has been sentenced to death by hanging along with 11 other defendants after being found guilty in a drugs case involving a criminal gang accused of importing ingredients used to manufacture narcotics for sale.

He Spent 27 Years on Death Row as a Wrongfully Convicted Man. What Comes Next?

23-hour solitary confinement. 115-degree heat. Jimmie Duncan is haunted by the decades he spent in Louisiana’s Angola Prison—and how, even after being released, he still isn’t truly free. Jimmie “Chris” Duncan wiped the sweat off his forehead as he assessed his temporary home from the parking lot of a rundown motel in central Louisiana. Sure, there’s drug dealing and prostitution, he said on a recent summer afternoon. And he suspected his neighbors were cooking meth on a floor below the room he paid $350 a week to rent.

California | He spent 19 years on death row. His conversion to Judaism helped him endure

Johnny Morales struggled to find sleep. He dozed off for a few moments, but officers came to his death row cell and woke him a little after midnight. They needed to inventory and box up his belongings. He was leaving San Quentin. Hands cuffed behind his back, he walked across the empty upper yard in the dim gray hours before daylight. An officer walked alongside him step for step, black latex-gloved fingers holding onto Morales’s arm. For almost 20 years, Morales could only experience the world outside his 4-by-11 foot cell in the condemned housing unit like this—chained and escorted by officers. Security protocols required all death row residents be handcuffed or shackled any time they were out in open space with staff.

Ex-corrections officials urge governor to commute Kansas death sentences

Former Kansas corrections officials are urging Governor Laura Kelly to grant clemency to the state's death row inmates. Former Kansas Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz has several reasons why he thinks the state should abolish the death penalty. Werholtz, who served as secretary from 2002 to 2010 and returned on an interim basis in 2019, uses his discussions with peers and family members of victims as well as experiences of seeing wrongly convicted people getting exonerated as his guiding points.

Florida executes Harold Gene Lucas

Florida state officials executed 74-year-old Harold Gene Lucas by lethal injection on Tuesday evening, concluding a 50-year legal saga stemming from the 1976 murder of a 16-year-old girl in Bonita Springs. STARKE, Fla. -- A man convicted of killing a teenage girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends was put to death Tuesday in the first of three executions planned this month in Florida. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, authorities said. He was sentenced to death for the 1976 shooting attack on Jill Piper and the wounding of her friends, Richard Byrd Jr. and Terri Rice.

Florida set to carry out 14th execution this year in the nation's busiest death chamber

MIAMI (AP) — A Florida man convicted of fatally shooting a 16-year-old girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends is set to be executed Tuesday in the first of three lethal injections scheduled this month in the state. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, is set to receive a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke starting at 6 p.m. He would be the 14th prisoner put to death this year in Florida, and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has already signed death warrants for two more executions set for later this September.

Arizona AG seeks execution date for man convicted in 1995 trooper killing

Trooper Bob Martin was killed during a traffic stop on the Beeline highway; execution for his killer could be as soon as January PHOENIX (AZFamily)—The Arizona Attorney General is asking for an execution date to be set for a man convicted in the killing of an Arizona State Trooper over 30 years ago. On Aug. 15, 1995, Trooper Bob Martin was shot and killed while performing a traffic stop along the Beeline Highway.

Hanging, confinement and the sentencing debate India won’t have

Ask anybody what a “death sentence” in India actually means, and the honest answer is that it can mean three quite different things. It can mean the noose—hanging by the neck until death; it can mean permanent confinement in jail—a term the courts now call imprisonment for the remainder of one’s natural life, and, far more often than either of the first two, it can simply mean delay in delivery of justice—a death sentence that is neither carried out nor commuted, waiting for completion of investigation, trial before the sessions court, hearing of a confirmation proceeding in a high court, appeal against conviction in the Supreme Court, or hearing of a mercy petition nobody has decided for years, sometimes for decades, until age or illness does what the state never got around to doing itself.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog