Tag Archive | "maid"

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Saudi Woman Cleared of Indonesia Maid Abuse

Posted on 04 April 2011 by hashimilion

A court has acquitted a Saudi who had been jailed for three years after being found guilty of torturing her Indonesian maid, a local newspaper said on Sunday.

“A court in Medina acquitted on Saturday a Saudi woman who was sentenced in January to three years in prison for severely torturing her Indonesian housemaid,” reported Arab News.

In January, Indonesia said it was appealing against the three-year jail term given to the woman for stabbing, beating and burning her maid, and slammed the sentence as being “too light.”

But on Saturday, the judge “said there was no evidence that the 53-year-old woman tortured her maid, Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa, 23, while her lawyer said he would seek damages for his client,” said the English-language daily.

During a hearing in January, Mustapa showed the judge her injuries, an Indonesian consular official in Jeddah Diddi Wahyudi told AFP.

“The court suspected the truth of the accusations made by the maid because she refused to take her oath in court,” the Saudi woman’s lawyer, Ahmad Al-Rashid, told Arab News.

Mustapa’s lawyer said he would appeal the verdict as “there was convincing evidence to prove that the maid is telling the truth,” reported the Saudi daily.

The case outraged rights groups and labour activists as another example of the paucity of protection for millions of mostly Asian domestic workers, especially in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

Saudi Arabia’s labour ministry said it was sorry about the case, which it called an isolated incident.

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Indonesia Petitions Saudi Arabia to spare maid

Posted on 04 March 2011 by hashimilion

Indonesia said on Wednesday it had appealed to Saudi Arabia to commute the beheading of a maid convicted of killing her employer in what she called an act of self-defence.

A court in the Saudi capital of Riyadh sentenced the maid, Darsem, to death for murdering her Yemeni employer in December 2007, foreign ministry spokeswoman Kusuma Habir told AFP.

‘We’ve lodged an appeal against the sentence to the court there through our embassy in Riyadh and Darsem’s lawyer. We hope she could be freed or at least get a lower sentence,’ she said.

‘Darsem said she acted in self-defence as the employer had tried to rape her.’ Indonesia is also raising compensation or ‘diyat’ of two million riyals (S$673,000) for the employer’s family, she said.

‘Darsem could escape the sentence if she receives a pardon from the family.

The family forgave her in January on the condition that she pays the compensation,’ Mr Habir said. — AFP

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