Maid tells court she cut off sponsor's penis to defend honour

DUBAI // A maid accused of cutting off her 77-year-old sponsor's penis with a razor told the court today she was defending her honour.

"I did what I did in revenge for all what he had done to me, your honour," JN, 26, from Bangladesh, told Judge Hamad Abdul Latif at the Criminal Court of First Instance.

When the the judge asked her why was she crying, she said, "Because I am sad, because he is in my father's age."

"I am guilty, but I was driven into doing what I did because he often forced me into having sex with him and offering him different sexual pleasures after he comes into the room and locks it from the inside," she told the judge, who ordered the translator to give her all the time she needed to say what she wanted to convey to the court.

She explained how she could not seek help as she spoke only her native language and knew nobody in the country.

"I want to go home to my family, your honour," she said.

JN could not enter a plea at her first hearing last week because there was no translator. She is charged with causing a permanent disability.

According to court records, on April 9, JN's sponsor, MM, raped her in her room after threatening to throw her out of the house if she did not obey his sexual demands. She said he raped her again the next day.

At about 11am on April 11, while she was in her room, she said MM asked her to pleasure him.

"I noticed a shaving blade on the cupboard next to the bed," JN told prosecutors.

She said she started pleasuring him and as he was distracted, she grabbed the blade and cut off his penis. She threw it in the rubbish bin, she said.

MM began screaming, and JN ran to another room and hid.

MM's son KM, 19, told prosecutors that he woke up to his father's screams. When he saw MM covered in blood, he called police.

"My father was sitting in a chair opposite my room bleeding severely," K?M said.

KM said he then saw JN trying to escape, so he stopped her. Police arrived soon afterward and MM was taken by ambulance to Rashid Hospital.

A medical report said that the organ was reattached, but that MM would suffer permanent disability.

The report also said tests could not confirm whether JN was raped.

The judge asked why JN was still in jail despite the court ordering her release on the condition that her passport be confiscated.

A verdict is expected on September 26.

salamir@thenational.ae