•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

Two Indonesian women working in Saudi Arabia have been granted reprieves from death sentences and  will return home soon, Humphrey Djemat, spokesman for the government-sanctioned migrant worker protection task force, said on Saturday.

In an e-mail made available to Antara, Humphrey named the two women as Mesi binti Dama Idon, who was found guilty of practicing witchcraft, and Neneng Sunengsih, who was convicted of murdering her employers’ 4-month-old baby.

“Both will be flown to Indonesia very soon. We’ll be probably flying back on [Thursday],” said Humphrey.

Mesi had already been sentenced by a local court but the Indonesian Consulate General’s legal affairs department filed an appeal to reduce the sentence. In July 2011, an appeals court reduced her sentence to 10 years imprisonment. It was then annulled by Saudi Arabia’s leader King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, who ordered the court to clear Mesi of all charges.

Meanwhile Neneng, from Sukabumi, West Java, was tried on Nov. 12, 2011. She was originally found guilty but later acquitted and freed.

The Indonesian Consulate hired a local lawyer, Naseer Al Dandani, to represent Neneng.

The lawyer convinced the prosecutors and judges that there was not enough evidence to charge Neneng as her fingerprints were not found on some items collected at the scene of the crime.

The fact that the baby’s parents declined to sign a permit to perform a post-mortem examination on the baby also hindered the local investigators in finding a cause of death.

The cases of Mesi and Neneng are the latest of several success stories for the task force. It recently brought home four migrant workers from Saudi Arabia: Darsem binti Daud Tawar, Bayanah binti Banhawi, Jamilah binti Abidin Rofi’i and Ranni binti Bohim Ukar.

“There are also seven other people who received pardons from the King,” Humphrey said. “They are now going through the immigration process. It’ll take time.”

Many groups have long demanded that the government pay more attention to the welfare of migrant workers, who are billed as the devisa, or “heroes of foreign exchange.”

The task force, known as Satgas TKI, is in charge of assisting and providing legal advocacy to Indonesian migrant workers facing legal problems, especially death sentences.

It was created following the public outcry over the execution in June of Ruyati binti Sapubi, an Indonesian maid convicted of murdering her employer in Saudi Arabia.

So far, Satgas TKI, has saved 64 Indonesian migrant workers from execution. The task force’s mandate was recently extended for another six months.