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span class="caption">Not forgotten: In a photo file, Ruwiyati (center), daughter of Ruyati — an Indonesian maid who was executed by beheading for murder in Saudi Arabia in June — tearfully objects to the University of Indonesia awarding Saudi King Abdullah an honorary doctorate for his “great contribution” to the promotion of human rights and moderation in Islam. (JP/Jerry Adiguna) An investigative team advocating Indonesian migrant workers has concluded that the government intentionally lied to the public and neglected the case of Ruyati binti Satubi, who was beheaded in Saudi Arabia in June.

The team — comprising Migrant Care, Fatayat Nahdlatul Ulama (a body under the country’s largest Islamic organization), Ruyati’s daughter Een Nuraenah and the Wahid Institute — carried out a seven-day investigation into how the case developed in Jeddah, Mecca and Medina.

The team said in a press statement issued on Monday that Ruyati was buried in Sharaya, Mecca, instead of in Ma’la as reported earlier by the National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI).

“The Indonesian Embassy [in Riyadh] and the Indonesian Consulate General [in Jeddah] overlooked available information on Ruyati’s planned execution because our investigation found that detailed information on a person who is to be executed, such as his or her identity, sex, country of origin and crime, is announced on TV and in local media at least one week before the execution,” it said.

“Ironically, the Indonesian ambassador in Riyadh said a while after the news about the execution broke that he only learned about it two hours after the execution,” said the team, referring to Indonesian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Gatot Abdullah Mansyur.

The team also found that no lawyer accompanied Ruyati throughout her trial and that she was only provided with an interpreter by the Indonesian Consulate General. Even the interpreter’s identity was “kept confidential”, according to the team.

“Een, Ruyati’s daughter, wanted to personally meet the lawyer handling her mother’s case, to learn exactly how her mother had been [before the execution],” Migrant Care executive director Anis Hidayah said.

“But when we demanded the Indonesian Embassy and the Consulate General let us meet with the lawyer, they finally admitted that there never had been one.”

The government has always insisted that it provided a lawyer for Ruyati.

The team also claimed that both the embassy and the Consulate General had yet to acquire Ruyati’s case file during her trial and even after three months after her execution.

Ruyati was beheaded on June 18 after being found guilty by a Saudi court of killing the wife of her Saudi employer, Khairiya bint Hamid Mijlid, on Jan. 10, 2010, by repeatedly striking her on the head with a cleaver and stabbing her in the neck with a knife.

According to Ruyati’s first and second employers, with whom the team had phone conversations, Ruyati had a nice personality. It was the third employer with whom Ruyati had problems, the team said.

In her final contact with her family in Bekasi, West Java, on Dec. 31, 2009, Ruyati complained about her employer’s ill treatment of her.

When asked for a response to the team’s investigation, Gatot did not respond to The Jakarta Post’s phone calls or text message.

Speaking to vivanews.com news portal, Gatot said: “Migrant Care should send us consultants, hire us lawyers or lend us their lawyers. If you have money, give us some of that. Just ask for permission from the Foreign Ministry. Give us a solution, don’t just protest.”

Lawmaker Rieke Dyah Pitaloka of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), who is on the House of Representatives Commission IX on manpower, said the government had no excuses, including insufficient amount of money, when it came to protecting migrant workers.

She said Rp 1.2 trillion (US$134.4 million) had been allocated for the protection of Indonesian nationals overseas, especially migrant workers, until the 2014 fiscal year.

“In addition, the government also has $3.48 million in non-tax state revenue from the $15 it collected from each of 232,283 Indonesian migrant workers who departed to the Middle East and the Asia Pacific only between September 2010 and February 2011,” said Rieke.

“The government also collected Rp 400,000 from those migrant workers in the same period for their insurance — including for hiring lawyers — making a total of Rp 92.9 billion. Of that amount, only Rp 1.2 billion has been disbursed during that period.”