Siti Zaenab
binti Duhri Rupa was executed on Tuesday after being on death row for over 15
years
Jakarta Globe, Ezra Sihite, Apr 15, 2015
Jakarta.
The Indonesian government, saying it has done its utmost to prevent the
execution of a possibly mentally ill Indonesian woman in Saudi Arabia, regrets
the fact that the decapitation went ahead on Tuesday, without her family being
notified in advance.
Siti Zaenab
binti Duhri Rupa was executed after being on death row for over 15 years for
killing her boss, after allegedly facing abuse.
“We have
done everything we can to free Siti Zaenab,” Foreign Ministry spokesman
Arrmanatha Nasir told reporters on Tuesday.
Arrmanatha
said that Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi had asked the family of the killed
woman to forgive the Indonesian worker, and a press release on the ministry’s
website said that President Joko Widodo as well as his predecessors Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono and Abdurrahman Wahid had sent letters to the Saudi king to
request clemency.
In Saudi
Arabia, a death sentence can be commuted if the family of the victim forgives
his or her murderer.
Siti
Zaenab, born in Madura in 1968, was sentenced to death in 1999.
Amnesty
International said in a press release that Siti Zaenab was reported to have
stabbed her employer 18 times after allegedly being mistreated by the
employer’s son. She “confessed” to the act during interrogation, but reports
suggest “police suspected that she suffered from mental illness at the time,”
Amnesty said.
“Imposing
the death penalty and executing someone with a suspected mental illness smacks
of a basic lack of humanity,” Philip Luther, Amnesty’s Middle East and North
Africa program director, said in the press release. “This practice has been
widely condemned on the world stage and Saudi Arabia should take this
opportunity to reconsider its stance on the death penalty.”
Amnesty
says Saudi Arabia ranks among the top five executioners in the world, having
executed at least 60 people so far this year, most of them by beheading. The
country carried out 90 executions last year.
“Whatever
the misguided purpose behind Saudi Arabia’s shocking spike in executions so far
this year, it should draw international condemnation. The Kingdom’s authorities
must halt this execution spree and establish an official moratorium on the use
of the death penalty,” Luther said.
Joko’s
government itself has come under fire in recent months for resuming executions
of drug convicts on death row, most of them foreign nationals.
Mustafa
Ibrahim Al-Mubarak, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Indonesia, said there might
have been a miscommunication between his government and the Indonesian embassy
in Riyadh.
“They knew
about the [upcoming] execution, but the Saudi Arabian government might have not
reminded them of the execution date,” said Al-Mubarak. “I will check what went
wrong. I will be in touch with my government to get their explanation.”
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