DUBAI: A Dubai court has upheld a 15-year jail term for an Emirati woman who tortured her Ethiopian maid to death by forcing her to drink pesticide, media reported yesterday.
The 46-year-old housewife was also accused of torturing a Filipina maid and beating up a third domestic worker whose nationality was not specified, a newspaper reported. Her husband, also an Emirati, was jailed for three years for “aiding and abetting the crime”, the daily said.
The woman starved her Ethiopian maid, “forced her to drink pesticide and denied her treatment after she developed pneumonia, resulting in the woman’s death”, the daily said.Her husband had confined the maids to a room in the couple’s villa and sealed the windows, it said.
The Filipina maid testified at Sunday’s hearing that the housewife beat them with sticks, banged their heads against walls until they bled, and forced them to drink detergent. “She used to strip us, take pictures of us naked and threaten to send them to our friends,” the daily quoted her as saying.
She said their employer “offered me a huge sum of money to keep silent” following the death of the Ethiopian maid, identified by The National as Khadija Kamel.
The Filipina said her employer had forced her to drink detergents because she disapproved of the way the maid cleaned the bathroom, the newspapers reported.
AFP
