> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Saudi Arabia Executes Two Bangladeshis as Sri Lankan Worker Awaits His Fate - URL: https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/featured/saudi-arabia-executes-two-bangladeshis-as-sri-lankan-worker-awaits-his-fate/ - Published: 2026-10-16T14:13:25.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-16T14:13:55.000Z - Author: Our Reporter - Tags: October 2026 **COLOMBO, Sri Lanka —** Saudi Arabia executed a Bangladeshi man and woman on Wednesday for what the authorities called an immoral act inside a mosque in Mecca. One day earlier, the kingdom’s Supreme Court had lifted the death sentence of a Sri Lankan Tamil migrant worker convicted of blasphemy over a comment he posted on Facebook. The worker, Anojan Sivarasa, is still in a Saudi jail. The ruling cancelled both his death sentence and an earlier five-year prison term, said Faiszer Musthapha, a President’s Counsel on his Sri Lankan legal team. The court did not acquit him or order his release, and a lower court can still impose another penalty when his case returns on Saturday. The cases are unrelated, but both raise questions about the harsh penalties faced by foreign workers in Saudi Arabia and the difficulty their families and governments face in obtaining information about the legal proceedings. Mr. Sivarasa, who is from Kalmunai in Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province, was arrested in July after an argument on Facebook that followed an incident during a Hindu pilgrimage in Sri Lanka. Another user posted remarks about a Hindu deity. Mr. Sivarasa replied in Tamil, and the Saudi authorities said his reply insulted Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. He later deleted the comment and apologised. The Al-Ahsa Criminal Court sentenced him to five years in prison and fined him three million Saudi riyals, about $800,000\. Prosecutors appealed, arguing that the case should be judged under Islamic law rather than the kingdom’s cybercrime legislation. On Sept. 17, an appellate court agreed and sentenced him to death. Sri Lankan and Saudi lawyers took the case to the Supreme Court on Oct. 11\. The court ruled two days later. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake welcomed the decision and thanked Saudi officials. He said the government would keep supporting Mr. Sivarasa and his family until the proceedings were over. The family has called for his release. In Mecca, the outcome was different. The Saudi Interior Ministry named the executed Bangladeshis as Nazerul Islam Abdul Basir and Siti Akhtar. It said security forces had arrested them and investigated the case before sending it to a court, which convicted them and sentenced them to death. The sentences were imposed under ta’zir, a category of Islamic law that leaves the punishment for certain offences to a judge. The ministry said the seriousness of the act, and its violation of the sanctity of the place and the time, justified the penalty. It said the verdicts became final after judicial review and that a royal order authorised the executions. The ministry did not name the mosque, say when the act took place or describe what the two were accused of doing. Posts on social media have claimed the pair had sex inside the mosque. The ministry’s statement does not say so. It gave no details of the evidence or of whether the defendants had lawyers. Bangladesh’s Consulate General in Jeddah said it had received no advance notice of the executions. A consular official told The Daily Star, a Dhaka newspaper, that the mission had sent a diplomatic note to the Saudi Foreign Ministry seeking official acknowledgment. It is not known whether Bangladeshi diplomats were told of the arrests or the trial, whether the two appealed, or what mitigating factors the courts considered. Rights groups have long criticised Saudi Arabia’s use of the death penalty. Amnesty International recorded at least 1,816 executions in the kingdom between January 2014 and June 2025\. The group says that putting people to death for crimes other than intentional killing violates international human rights standards. Sri Lanka has been through this before. In 2013, Saudi Arabia beheaded Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan housemaid convicted of killing an infant in her care, despite appeals for clemency from Colombo. It is unclear what penalty, if any, the court will impose on Mr. Sivarasa on Saturday.