A Kuwaiti appeals court upheld on Tuesday the death sentence for a Filipino housemaid, convicted of killing her employer’s seven-year-old son, the woman’s lawyer said.

 

Attorney Faisal Al Matar said the ruling of the Cassation Court – the country’s highest appeals point – was final. The ruling did not have an explanation, but the lawyer said it routinely takes weeks for the tribunal to make the explanation available.

 

The 25-year-old maid, identified in legal documents here as May Membriri Vecina, was convicted of slitting the throat of seven-year-old Salem Al Otaibi with a kitchen knife in January 2007. She was also found guilty of attempted murder of the boy’s 11-year-old brother Abdullah and 18-year-old sister Hajar, who both survived.

She was first sentenced to death by a criminal court last July. The conviction and sentence were then upheld by an appeals court in September, and it automatically went to the highest tribunal.

 

Al Matar says that Vecina, a mother of two, had complained of mistreatment by her employer and that she has said she deplores her actions. She had allegedly told the court that her employer’s wife called her names in front of other people, just minutes before she undertook the deadly attack.

 

“She was temporarily insane,” Al Matar said. “She insists she regrets the crime... and she thought of killing herself,” in remorse, he added.

 

Death sentences are carried out by hanging in this small oil-rich emirate in the Gulf.

 

The lawyer said Vecina’s life could be spared if the victim’s father forgives her and gives up his legal rights in return for blood money.

 

In Manila, Cabinet secretary Ricardo Saludo said the Philippines won’t give up trying to free Vecina.

 

“We are saddened by the judgment on May Vecina in Kuwait,” Saludo said. “Our government and embassy will not stop looking for ways to save her. Hopefully she’ll become one of the hundreds of overseas Filipino workers who are freed from jail and sent home due to the efforts of our government every year.”

 

Philippine Vice President Noli de Castro, told reporters he was willing to go to Kuwait, if the Philippine president approved, to find ways of saving the condemned housemaid.

 

Another domestic helper from the Philippines, Marilou Ranario, 33, also faces death by hanging in Kuwait after being convicted of murdering her employer in 2005.

 

Last December, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo made a special trip to Kuwait to plead with the emir for the life of Ranario. At the time, the president’s spokesman, Ignacio Bunye, said the Kuwaiti ruler, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, promised to reduce the penalty to life in prison, and further cut it if the victim’s family sign a forgiveness note.

 

But there has been no announcement to that effect by Kuwaiti authorities.

 

More than 500,000 domestic helpers from Asian countries work in Kuwait, which has a population of over 3 million. Complaints of non-payment of salaries and physical abuse are common among them. (AP)