Woman jailed for three years in (Indonesian) housemaid’s beating death
By Nour Abuzant - Gulf Times - March 2011
A Doha appeals court has sentenced to three year’s imprisonment an Egyptian woman for “beating to death” an Indonesian housemaid some three years ago.
The judges ordered the 35-year-old woman to pay QR150,000 as blood money to the family of the victim, who was represented by the Indonesian embassy throughout the trial. According to court papers, Qatar’s Eid Charity presented a cheque - worth QR150,000 - to the family members, who opted to receive the blood money “and that also helped to reduce the jail term”, sources said.
The Doha court of first instance had sentenced the woman to five-years in jail, but the upper court said the verdict was null and void because the verdict did not include the article on which the conviction was based. According to the court papers, the police went to the crime scene after receiving a call from the defendant’s husband. The body of the 24-year-old victim was found on the kitchen floor with traces of blood in different parts of the house in the Ein Khalid area. The forensic report said the body of the victim had two stab wounds, burns and 43 bruises “resulting from the use of an acute tool”. Interrogators found an ashtray and a knife stained with the victim’s blood in the house. However, the appeals court ruled that “the forensic findings were insufficient to prove that the suspect intended to kill the victim”.
The court dismissed the defendant’s version that the housemaid had committed suicide, saying that the forensic report contradicted any such claim. The court heard that the motive behind beating the maid was that the Egyptian woman was unhappy with the Indonesian’s work. The defendant was eight months pregnant at the time of the incident on May 5, 2008. According to the prosecution, the Egyptian stabbed the maid twice in a fit of anger while the victim was working in the kitchen.
The woman has to leave the country after being released from jail , the court ruled. According to court papers, Qatar’s Eid Charity presented a cheque - worth QR150,000 - to the family members, who opted to receive the blood money “and that also helped to reduce the jail term”.
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| Indonesian ban on workers to Saudi Arabi. |
Moratorium from August 1 reflects Jakarta's anger over maid's execution in kingdom last week. Aljazeera - June 2011 Indonesia has barred its citizens from travelling to Saudi Arabia to work, amid a spat with Riyadh over the beheading of an Indonesian maid in the kingdom for alleged murder. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Indonesian president, on Thursday condemned the beheading and accused Riyadh of breaking the "norms and manners" of international relations. "I decided to apply a moratorium on sending Indonesian workers to Saudi Arabia, to be in effect on August 1, but starting from today, steps toward this have begun" he said in a live TV address. The moratorium will apply "until Indonesia and Saudi Arabia can come to an agreement to give rights necessary for Indonesian workers," he added. Ruyati binti Sapubi, 54, was executed by sword after being convicted of murdering her Saudi employer, Khairiya bint Hamid Mijlid, with a meat cleaver for not being granted leave to visit home. Furious over her execution, Jakarta has recalled its ambassador to Saudi Arabia for "consultations". The execution also prompted calls from Indonesian rights activists for the scrapping of the death penalty. Indonesia carries out executions by firing squad. There are about 1.2 million Indonesian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, most of them working as maids, who are a valuable source of foreign exchange reserves and help reduce unemployment in Southeast Asia's leading economy. Twenty-three Indonesians currently face execution in Saudi Arabia, where people convicted of murder are beheaded in public. Source: http://aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/June2011 * * * OTHER CASES & FACTS SLAVERY TYPES (Wikipedia) #Unfree labor · Debt bondage - Human trafficking · Peonage - Penal labor · Sexual slavery - Wage slavery |
