President Mahinda Rajapaksa today donated one million rupees to the family of executed Sri Lankan maid Rizana Nafeek at Temple Trees, President’s Media Unit said.
A cheque of Rs. 1 million from the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) was presented to Nafeek’s family by the President.
Minister of Foreign Employment Promotion & Welfare, Dilan Perera, Chief Minister of the Eastern Province M. N. Abdul Majeed, MPs M.S. Thaufeek and A.H.M. Azwer were also present, the media unit said.
The impoverished family lives in a make-shift home in the eastern village of Muttur. Nafeek had falsified her age and gone to Saudi Arabia as a maid to earn money to build a proper house for her family, according to family associates.
President Mahinda Rajapakse who had pleaded on behalf of the maid denounced the execution and recalled Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Riyadh in protest.
Nafeek was found guilty of smothering an infant in her care after an argument with the child’s mother in 2005 when she was 17 years old, the Saudi interior ministry has said.
The US and the United nations led international condemnation of the Saudi authorities over the execution.
