Despite President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s repeated pleas for clemency, Saudi Arabia has beheaded Indonesian migrant worker, M Zaini Misrin.
The worker from Bangkalan, East Java, was executed on Sunday. He worked as a driver and was sentenced to death on Nov. 17, 2008, after being found guilty of murdering his employer, Abdullah bin Umar Munammad Al Sindy. He was arrested on Jul. 13, 2004.
Migrant Care, an Indonesian organisation focusing on the welfare of Indonesian migrant workers, suspected that Zaini had been forced to confess to the murder. They have also claimed that he did not receive legal assistance during his trial and was only assigned a translator, who is also believed to be complicit in forcing him to confess to the crime he claimed he did not commit.
“Saudi Arabia also did not notify Indonesia [about the execution] either through the consulate general in Jeddah or the Foreign Ministry,” the group said in a statement released on Monday.
The Indonesian Foreign Ministry confirmed the execution and Migrant Care’s claim that it was not notified by Riyadh beforehand about Zaini’s beheading.
President Jokowi has requested to the Islamic Kingdom that Zaini and other Indonesians on death row in Saudi Arabia be granted clemency on several occasions.
The Indonesian Consulate General in Jeddah had also requested that Zaini’s case be reviewed and a reinvestigation was conducted between 2011 and 2014, according to Migrant Care. The legal efforts, however, failed to overturn his conviction.
Source: The Jakarta Post
Photo courtesy of Al Arabiya