Country protests beheading of it's citizen in Saudi Arabia

onnaedo

April 15, 2015 4:13 PM

Zainab was beheaded on Tuesday in Medina without giving Indonesian consular officials or her family any prior notice.

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Following the beheading of an Indonesian citizen, Siti Zainab, who was convicted of stabbing and beating to death her employer, Noura al-Morobei, in 1999, Indonesia's government has summoned Saudi Arabia's ambassador in Jakarta to protest her execution.

Zainab was beheaded on Tuesday in Medina without giving Indonesian consular officials or her family any prior notice.

Human rights groups had criticised the sentence, asserting that Zainab had been acting in self-defence and might also have been mentally ill.

Also, Indonesian president, Joko Widodo and three of his predecessors had appealed for clemency.

BBC reports that Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said "we had taken all efforts [to prevent the beheading] including through diplomatic channels, legal avenues and approaching the family of the victim, as well as sending a presidential letter and during my meeting with the Saudi deputy foreign minister in March."

Also the Saudi ambassador to Indonesia, Mustafa Ibrahim al-Mubarak, said he had been "surprised" to be summoned, but would "check what went wrong".

Meanwhile, the Saudi interior ministry said the execution had been delayed for more than 15 years until the youngest of the victim's children was old enough to decide whether or not the family would want to pardon Zainab or demand her execution.

Migrant Care, an NGO that campaigns on behalf of Indonesian expatriate workers, alleged that Zainab had been acting in self-defence against an employer who had abused her.

The group further said that before her arrest, she had sent two letters in which she said that Morobei and her son had been cruel to her.

onnaedo