RIYADH: A Saudi appeals court has reopened the case of a Sri Lankan woman who was sentenced to death for adultery, Sri Lankan Ambassador Azmi Thassim said on Tuesday.

Thassim said the plea will probably be heard in early January but the exact date has yet to be announced.

The 45-year-old married woman with two children, who was working as a maid in the kingdom, was sentenced to death in August after being found guilty of having an illicit affair with a Sri Lankan bachelor. Her paramour, who was convicted alongside her, was sentenced to 100 lashes. The foreign ministry has not revealed their identities.

Sri Lanka’s Deputy Foreign Minister Harsha de Silva first broke the news to parliament in Colombo on Tuesday, saying that the positive development was a result of the Foreign Ministry’s intervention.

“Based on the advice of the lawyers and our (foreign ministry’s) intervention on the matter, a decision has been reached to reopen the case,” de Silva told lawmakers.

“We see this as a victory,” he said, adding that the ministry will bear all the legal expenses of reopening the case and “make the fullest efforts in order to get this judgment changed.”

Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera met with an official from the Saudi Embassy in Colombo last week and expressed Sri Lanka’s concerns about the case. Samaraweera has also requested to speak with Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister to seek clemency for the woman.

The Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, an umbrella organization of Sri Lanka’s minority Muslims, said it wrote to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman last week to ask him to pardon the woman and the man, noting their inferior education and poor economic situation.