RIYADH, 7 July 2007 — The father of a Sri Lankan maid facing the death penalty in the Kingdom has appealed to the victim’s father for clemency in a sensational case that has made headlines in the island’s newspapers.

A court in Dawadmi sentenced Rizana Nazik to death after being found guilty of killing her sponsor’s four-month-old infant in February 2005. Nazik was 17 at the time.

Sources from the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry in Colombo told Arab News that Rizana’s father, Mohammed Rafeek, wrote a letter to the father of the baby pleading for him to spare his daughter’s life by instituting his right under Shariah to forgive the convict and spare her the sword.

“We have forwarded the appeal to the Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh to be handed over to the father of the deceased infant,” the Foreign Ministry official said.

Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohane said that his ministry would take all necessary steps to highlight the plight of the Sri Lankan citizen and would do everything possible save her from execution.

Confirming the receipt of the letter, an embassy official here said that the letter written in Tamil would be translated into Arabic and given to the relevant party. The father of the deceased infant is a government worker in Riyadh.

Sri Lankan officials are reportedly discussing the issue to see what can be done to help prevent Nazik from being executed. The Lankan Foreign Ministry is also considering bringing the father to the Kingdom to meet the family of the deceased child.

Farina Nazik, mother of Rizana said her daughter went to the Kingdom when she was still a schoolgirl studying at Safi Nagar School in Muttur.

“Her first thoughts at her tender age was getting a nice house and a good education for her two younger sisters,” she said.

In an interview with BBC, Farina Nazik said: “Twenty-eight days after Rizana left Sri Lanka, we received a letter from her saying that she had to look after ten children. She was not happy and wanted to change her employer.”

That was the only letter Rizana sent to her family. Rizana described in her letter that she was overworked on a daily basis. She had to get up at three in the morning and work till late at night.

In the meantime the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission has made a petition to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for clemency.

Rajeswary Balasubramaniam, a leading Tamil writer who lives in London, has appealed to women’s organizations to send in their appeal to the king for clemency.