JAKARTA, Mar 02, 2011 (AFP) - Indonesia said 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 ($530,000) 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," Habir said.
The Indonesian embassy in Riyadh has received pledges of around one million riyals from the community in Saudi Arabia, she said.
"We've been given a six-month deadline to raise the fine... but this could be extended. We'll continue with our efforts," she said.
Around 70 percent of the 1.2 million Indonesians working in Saudi Arabia are domestic helpers, according to officials.
Rights groups say millions of mostly Asian domestic workers are regularly exposed to physical and financial abuse in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states due to poor or non-existent labour laws.
Earlier this year Indonesia criticised a three-year jail sentence given to a Saudi woman for brutally torturing her Indonesian maid as "too light".
A court in the Saudi city of Medina sentenced the woman to three years in prison for stabbing, beating and burning the 23-year-old woman with an iron.
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Copyright AFP 2011.
