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Saudi Arabia beheads Indonesian worker despite Jokowi’s pleas for clemency
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Struggle for life -- Indonesian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia line up for an immigration check on their way home. (Tempo/-)
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audi Arabia has beheaded an Indonesian migrant worker for murder despite President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s repeated pleas that the man be granted clemency.
M. Zaini Misrin from Bangkalan, East Java, was executed on Sunday, according to Migrant Care, an Indonesian organization focusing on the welfare of Indonesian migrant workers.
Zaini, who worked as a driver, 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 suspected that the 53-year-old Bangkalan resident had been forced to confess to the murder.
The group further claimed that Zaini did not receive legal assistance during his trial and was only accompanied by a translator 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 that Zaini and other Indonesians on death row in Saudi Arabia be granted clemency on at least three occasions: During his visit to Riyadh in September 2015, during King Salman’s visit to Jakarta in March 2017 and through a letter sent to the Islamic kingdom in November 2017.
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. (ahw)
