DFA to exhaust all means to save Filipina from death sentence in Saudi Arabia

March 1, 2019

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) will exhaust all diplomatic avenues and legal remedies to save a Filipina after the Saudi Court of Appeals affirmed her death sentence on Thursday.

The Philippine Consulate General in Jeddah said it will continue to assist the Filipina who was sentenced to death in 2017 for murdering her female employer in Makkah three years ago, the DFA said in a statement on Friday.

The Filipina had told the court she killed her employer in self-defense, DFA said.

Consul General Edgar Badajos said the Consulate has been assisting the Filipina since the start of her trial by providing her with a lawyer and sending a representative to attend the hearings.

Badajos said the case has been referred to the Department of Justice, which is chair of the Inter-Agency Committee Against Trafficking (IACAT), for the filing of appropriate charges against the recruiters of the Filipina, who was a minor when she was deployed to Saudi Arabia in 2016. DMS