Saudi Arabia: Sri Lankan teenager faces beheading

Domestic worker Rizana Nafeek, 19, was sentenced to death on 16 June for a murder committed while she was 17 years old.

Saudi Arabia is a state party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which expressly prohibits the execution of offenders for crimes committed when they were under 18 years old.

Rizana Nafeek is believed to have appealed against her sentence, but if her appeal is unsuccessful she could be executed within days.

Update 12 February 2007

Rizana apparently told the authorities that she was born in February 1988, but they seem to have ignored this on the basis that her passport indicated that she was born in February 1982, making her 17 years old at the time of the crime.

According to information available to Amnesty International she was not allowed to present her birth certificate or other evidence of her age.

Update 16 August 2007

The case is still on-going and we will keep you updated when we have further news. Please continue to keep up the pressure.

Rizana Nafeek was arrested in May 2005 in Jeddah on charges of murdering an infant in her care. She had no access to lawyers either during interrogation or at her trial, and is believed to have confessed to the murder during police questioning. She has since retracted her confession.

Background

Saudi Arabia applies the death penalty for a wide range of offences. Court proceedings fall far short of international standards for fair trial, and take place behind closed doors. Defendants normally do not have formal representation by a lawyer, and in many cases are not informed of the progress of legal proceedings against them. They may be convicted solely on the basis of confessions obtained under duress, torture or deception. The rate of executions in Saudi Arabia has recently increased sharply, and the authorities have executed at least 100 people so far this year, although the true figure may be much higher. Death sentences are usually carried out by beheading.

Saudi Arabia assured the Committee on the Rights of the Child (who monitor states' implementation of the CRC) in January 2006 that no children had been executed in the country since the CRC came into force in Saudi Arabia in 1997. This is a weaker commitment than is required by the CRC, which demands that no one is executed for crimes committed when they were under 18, no matter how old they are now.

Domestic worker Rizana Nafeek, 19, was sentenced to death on 16 June for a murder committed while she was 17 years old.

Saudi Arabia is a state party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which expressly prohibits the execution of offenders for crimes committed when they were under 18 years old.

Rizana Nafeek is believed to have appealed against her sentence, but if her appeal is unsuccessful she could be executed within days.

Update 12 February 2007

Rizana apparently told the authorities that she was born in February 1988, but they seem to have ignored this on the basis that her passport indicated that she was born in February 1982, making her 17 years old at the time of the crime.

According to information available to Amnesty International she was not allowed to present her birth certificate or other evidence of her age.

Update 16 August 2007

The case is still on-going and we will keep you updated when we have further news. Please continue to keep up the pressure.

Follow up

Amnesty have created a new action for Rizana Nafeek In light of the recent update.
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