T

he Indonesian government is considering not paying around Rp 25 billion (US$2.5 million) in blood money to save Indonesian migrant worker Satinah binti Jumadi Amad from being executed in Saudi Arabia for killing her employer.

The Foreign Ministry said the government was still seeking other ways to help Satinah after the family of the murdered Saudi requested that the court order Satinah to pay blood money, known as diyat, to annul her death sentence, which was handed down in April 2009.

The Ministry’s director for legal aid and protection of Indonesian nationals overseas, Tatang Budie Utama Razak, said they managed to get a stay of execution and would approach the victim’s family to ask them to forgive Satinah.

“We need certainty. If the 10 million riyals or [around] Rp 25 billion in blood money has been paid, they will likely ask for another 30 million or 50 million riyals,” Tatang said before representatives from government institutions, civil society groups and the media on Thursday.

That day, the ministry was in the middle of a two-day coordination meeting to discuss ways to handle Indonesian migrant workers facing executions after they were slapped with death sentences in Saudi Arabia.

“For us [paying blood money] is not a problem, but we are talking about the people’s money in the state budget here,” he said. “We don’t want one single life to be lost but there is supposed to be a measurable and rational answer. We don’t want to incite another debate like in Darsem’s case.”

Darsem was sentenced to death on May 6, 2009, by a Riyadh court for killing her Yemeni employer, although she told the court it was in self-defense as he attempted to rape her. The victim’s family later forgave Darsem but required her to pay around Rp 5 billion in blood money within six months. Darsem’s life was spared after the government paid the blood money to the victim’s family on June 25, 2011.

The ministry suspected that several people might have tried to benefit from the blood money request by acting as brokers between families of the victim and the government.

“First we paid 55,000 riyals [for Banayah binti Banhawi Sawawi, another Indonesian worker]. Then we paid 2 million riyals for Darsem. It continues to rise,” Tatang said. “We don’t want ‘qisas’ [the law of retaliation] to be just a matter financial transaction.”

Former head of the government task force on migrant workers Maftuh Basyuni agreed that blood money was in fact not the responsibility of the government, but that of the perpetrators or their families. “Yet, people can make donations,” he said. “The government is [also] allowed to make contributions.”

Anis Hidayah of Migrant Care criticized the government for failing to take into account the fact that the Indonesian workers on death row in Saudi Arabia were wrongly accused and had become victims of an unjust and inhumane legal system.

“They are not criminals as no migrant worker goes there to commit murder.” she said, adding that the government must protect Indonesians abroad as mandated by the 1945 Constitution.

At least three female workers — Satinah, Zainab, Tursilawati — have been sentenced to death for various crimes in Saudi Arabia and are awaiting execution. Hundreds of workers in the region, mostly employed as domestic helpers, have been repatriated each year after escaping mistreatment in their workplace.

Din Syamsuddin, the Manpower ministry’s director general of labor Placement and the chairman of country’s second-largest Muslim organization Muhammadiyah, is of the same opinion with both Tatang and Amin. “The latest Rp 5 million in blood money has become a precedent and people of Saudi know it. There is no way the price will decrease,” he said.