Jakarta Globe, March 16, 2011
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| Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa in a hospital in Riyadh. The appeals court in Mecca on Monday issued a ruling to revoke the jail sentence imposed on her employer. (Photo Source: Al Arabiya) |
The Saudi woman charged with physically abusing her Indonesian maid, Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa, had her three-year jail sentence revoked by the appeals court in Mecca on Monday on the grounds that the evidence used to link her to the crime was insufficient.
Sumiati's case made headlines last year both in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia after the 23-year-old maid accused her employer of abusing her by beating and burning different parts of her body, especially her neck, left hand and upper lip, where she sustained severe injuries.
The defendant's lawyer, Ahmed al-Rashed, said the judge in the original case had made several procedural errors, which required the ruling be suspended.
“We objected to the sentence at the Court of Appeals because several of its legal procedures were missing,” Rashed told AlArabiya.net. “And we demanded that my client be released on bail until the case is reviewed.”
Rashed added that the judge might have been swayed by pressure from the Indonesian embassy as well as media coverage of the controversial case.
The defendant argued in court that Sumiati had a mental illness which made her inflict the injuries upon herself. Rashed said that when Sumiati was examined by a psychiatrist who concluded she was of sound mind, the judge also leapt to the conclusion that the defendant had to be guilty.
“The judge assumed that if the maid is sane, then it is her employer who did that to her because the maid works for her. He also passed the verdict in accordance with the human trafficking law and this does not apply to my client,” he told AlArabiya.net
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