Lankan maid to be stoned to death for adultery in Arabian nightmare.

Lankan maid to be stoned to death for adultery in Arabian nightmare

In a few weeks, if not in a matter of days, a Lankan woman who had been working as housemaid in Saudi Arabia for three years will be dragged out of her Saudi jail and forcibly led to a downtown public square in Riyadh. 

This is the place commonly known as chop-chop square, where public beheadings are generally carried out nearly every Friday.

Scene from Death of a Princess which dramatized Princess Misha'al's ordeal

But for this Lankan mother of four, it will not be a brief tryst with the executioner; to feel the sudden swish of sword as it swiftly slices the air and severs her neck in the act of decapitation. 

Instead she will be the focus of all eyes in a bizarre public spectacle that involves the participation of the whole congregation.

At the infamous square, she will be lowered into a specially dug hole to set the scene for Saudi justice to be enacted. 

Once she has been buried up to her neck in the sand, the signal will be sounded for the assembled throng to form a ring of death. 

The gathered crowd will then be let loose to hurl stones at her face and her head until they finally kill her. 

And, in case, they run out of stones to smash her head to kingdom come and she survives the ordeal, a few gunshots aimed point blank at her head, will do the needful to put her out of her misery.

And what’s her heinous crime to deserve this brutal, barbaric, inhumane form of punishment? Having an affair with a Lankan youth in the dusty desert of oil rich Saudi Arabia where, like its wealth, its hypocrisies lie buried in the sand. 

She and the youth have been convicted of zina, or the crime of adultery or fornication which is not a crime in Sri Lanka. And as the punishment for the crime of adultery in Saudi Arabia holds, she will be stoned to death. The man to a hundred lashes.

She will meet the same horrible fate, a royal Saudi princess met 38 years ago. Princess Misha’al bint Fahd from the House of Saud was the granddaughter of Prince Muhammad bin Abdulaziz, who was an older brother of King Khalid.

 Misha’al studied at a school in Lebanon and while she was there met and fell in love with the nephew of the Saudi ambassador in Lebanon. Khaled al-Sha’er Mulhallal. An affair blossomed. Upon their return to Saudi Arabia, it emerged that they had conspired to meet alone on several occasions. 

They were charged with zina. But there were no witnesses. However in court she is said to have confessed four times. They were found guilty and sentenced to death. On July 15, 1977, Misha’al, 19 years old, was led to the square to discover the music that serenades love in Saudi.

Since stoning to death involves public participation in the gruesome act by throwing stones at the convicted, perhaps the Saudi Royal Family deemed it unwise to set a precedent by inviting the populace to shed royal blood with impunity for any reason; and prudently opted instead to have her shot.

But whether it’s a serious Romeo and Juliet love affair of the heart or a one night steamy romp in the sand dune, the punishment is the same.

 Saudi Arabia which is the only country in the world to be named after its founder Ibn Al Saud, who died only 62 years ago, and still bear the family name, is also one of the few countries in the Muslim world which carries out the punishment of death by stoning for adultery on the basis they are following Islamic law to the letter.

So what are the indefatigable efforts taken by our Ministry of Foreign Employment to help save this unnamed Lankan woman from being stoned to death? After all, she is part of the work force forced through circumstances to toil and sweat in torrid climes for family and country. 

Though often viewed disdainfully by the stay-at-homes, it is the hard earned money of these housemaids that keep Lanka’s cash tills ringing.

Last week its Minister Thalatha Atukorale announced that the Lankan Government has retained a lawyer at a cost of Saudi riyal 10,000 (Rs. 350,000) to plead her case in appeal. 

She declared: “We are trying to get her sentence reduced and, if that is not possible, to have a lenient sentence.” she said.

Apart from boggling the mind what the end result of the minister’s efforts to get the death by stoning sentence reduced will be if successful — will it result in a half stoned to death or stoned to near death — her second hope to obtain a lenient sentence instead of the stoning to death punishment through the courts, reveals the extent to which she and her advisors are out of their depths when it comes to Islamic law that govern the life and stay of the Lankan labour force working in Saudi Arabia.

In Islam, illegal sexual intercourse is known as Zina and is a crime. It includes premarital sex and extramarital sex or fornication and adultery.

 It is not only a crime but it is a crime which falls under acts classified as Hudud crimes. Hudud crimes are crimes against God. And no person, whether king or commoner, or state

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