Did Saudis Really Torture Sri Lankan Maid?

(Sept. 4) -- The surgeon who removed nails hammered into a Sri Lankan woman when she worked as a maid in Saudi Arabia says he's "shocked" that Saudi officials are contesting her claims.

"We can tell that, at the very least, her wounds from where the nails were hammered into her were at least two weeks old," Dr. Prabath Gajadeera told AOL News today, speaking of 49-year-old L.T. Ariyawathi.

"She came to us right after returning from Saudi Arabia. So the nails had to be put into her in Saudi Arabia. I'm shocked that Saudi Arabia is trying to deny this," he said.

Ariyawathi worked as a domestic for a large family from March until Aug. 22, when she flew back to Colombo, Sri Lanka, from Riyadh. The following morning, her concerned children brought her to Kamburupitiya Base Hospital, where doctors took X-rays and found 24 nails in her body.

She said the male head of the family for whom she worked in Riyadh inserted the nails in her because he was angry that she didn't speak Arabic and that she felt overworked. Ariyawathi said his wife heated the nails before giving them to her husband.

But this week, the head of the powerful Saudi Arabian National Recruitment Committee, which directs foreign workers in Saudi Arabia, implied that Ariyawathi was lying about how the nails got into her body.

"These allegations against the Saudi employer are baseless, and the whole episode looks like one big drama," Saad Al-Baddah, chairman of SANARCOM, said on state television Tuesday night, the Arab News reported. "It is nothing but blackmail by Sri Lankan labor firms."

Sri Lankan officials met with Al-Baddah in Riyadh on Tuesday on Ariyawathi's behalf. But Al-Baddah was not convinced that the Saudi couple who employed her punished her by inserting nails into her body.

Baddah said the male was over 60 and in poor health, including a heart condition.

"The sponsor's doctors have advised him to do only 25 percent of his normal work because of his weak heart," he said. "How can a person in such poor health be able to do a strenuous activity like hammer nails into a woman's body?"

Al-Baddah also pointed out that prior to leaving Riyadh, Ariyawathi signed a form saying that she did not experience any problems with her sponsor before she left Saudi Arabia. But Sri Lanka newspapers have reported that domestics have to sign such statements or they will not be able to leave the country.

The Saudi Embassy in Colombo has also said it doubts Ariyawathi's claims. "The important factor is that this housemaid cannot pass security checks and sophisticated machines at Riyadh and Colombo International Airports with these metal things inside her body," an embassy statement said.

Gajadeera said Ariyawathi went home Thursday to the house -- doctors described it as a three-sided shanty with a makeshift roof -- she shares with her husband and some of her children.

"Her wounds are healing, and she can walk normally," Gajadeera said. "She is coming back to the hospital Monday so we can check on her progress."

Gajadeera said he and other surgeons removed 13 nails, some as long as 2 inches, and six needles. Five needles remain that are not life-threatening but could cause nerve damage if removed, he said.

"She told us very specifically the stories of how the nails were put into her," Gajadeera said.