Leniency plea for worker facing death

JAKARTA (JP): South Sulawesi provincial administration is trying to save the life of a local man, Sainal Abidin, who was recently sentenced to death by a Malaysian court for murdering a fellow worker, Antara reported yesterday.

The administration has sent a letter to the Indonesian ministers of home affairs and foreign affairs notifying them that Sainal, from Pangkep regency, is on death row in Sandakan Penitentiary, in Sabah, Malaysia, according to H. Alwi Rum, assistant to the South Sulawesi province secretary.

Alwi informed Sainal's sister, Zulhayati, of the administration's efforts to help her brother.

News that Sainal had been given the death penalty broke out when South Sulawesi Governor H. Zainal Basri Palaguna received a letter on the subject from Arifin Hamzah, the Indonesian consul in Kinibalu, Malaysia.

Arifin said he deplored the fact that the court had tried Sainal without his knowledge.

Arifin was quoted saying that he learned about the case from local newspapers on Dec. 6.

He then met with Sainal, local authorities, and lawyer Francis Wong at Sandakan penitentiary, to appeal for leniency for Sainal.

Alwi said the South Sulawesi administration would pay for Sainal's parents to visit him at Sandakan penitentiary.

Sainal, who worked at a plywood plant in Sandakan, was sentenced to death by Judge Richard Malajun in the Sandakan High Court after he was found guilty of the premeditated murder of a fellow worker, Isnidal Rasin, a Malaysian citizen.

Earlier this year, Indonesians were shocked when they heard that a migrant worker, Solehah Anam Kadiran, had been beheaded in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in September.

She had been found guilty of killing her employer.

The public was outraged when they learned that Nasiroh Karmudin, another female Indonesian worker in Saudi Arabia, was about to be executed for a similar crime.

Intensive diplomatic efforts worked in Nasiroh's favor; she escaped the death penalty after one of the murdered man's wives pardoned her.

With the declaration of forgiveness from the man's family, Nasiroh was freed from qishash -- an Islamic law that stipulates that a punishment be equal to the crime. This includes a death for a death.

Nasiroh still has to complete a five-year prison term. She should be released by September next year. (swe)