The United Nations is criticizing the U.S.-backed regime in Saudi Arabia for the beheading of a Sri Lankan guest worker. Rizana Nafeek, a 24-year-old housemaid, was decapitated last week over allegations of murdering the baby of her employer. Rupert Colville, the spokesperson for the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, condemned the execution.

Rupert Colville: “We express our deep dismay at the execution of a young Sri Lankan woman in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday. Rizana Nafeek, who arrived in Saudi Arabia from Sri Lanka to work as a housemaid in 2005, was charged with the murder of her employers’ baby a week after her arrival. Despite a birth certificate that allegedly showed she was a minor at the time of the baby’s death and repeated expressions of concern from the international community, she was convicted of murder, sentenced to death and beheaded.”