Woman condemned to public stoning in Saudi Arabia; her lover gets 100 lashes

A Sharia court sentenced a 45-year-old married Sri Lankan woman to death by stoning after she admitted to committing adultery. Her lover, who was single, was sentenced to receive 100 lashes, a considerably lesser punishment for the crime.

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Both parties were Sri Lankan migrant workers in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh. The woman had been working as a maid in the capital since 2013.

Officials from the Sri Lankan Foreign Employment Bureau issued a request to pardon the woman. Lawyers are working on an appeal, reports India TV News Nov. 30. “The woman has accepted her crime four times in the courts,” said Upul Deshapriya, a spokesperson for the Bureau. Both the woman and her lover were convicted last August.

Currently, the Bureau’s appeal is in negotiation with the Saudi Arabian government. The Foreign Ministry is also separately negotiating the case.

In Sharia law, adultery is a crime considered punishable by death alongside other acts such as murder, rape, theft, drug trafficking and slander.

The most common death sentence is carried out by public beheading. Death by public stoning is a method used to execute those who are convicted of acts such as adultery. In both cases, the person convicted of the crime is sedated before their punishments are issued. In some cases, the deceased’s body is further subjected to public condemnation. In one case, a convicted killer in Saudi Arabia had his head sewn back on for public display after he had been beheaded.

Amnesty International writes that as of this year, Saudi Arabia will surpass its annual execution record. As of March, Saudi Arabia had executed 44 people, a number that is four times the amount of people executed in the country last year.

*originally published on the now defunct Examiner.com