Maid who stabbed and burnt sponsor’s children has life sentence upheld

DUBAI // The maid who was handed a life sentence in jail for stabbing and burning her sponsor’s three children had the term upheld by Dubai Court of Appeal on Wednesday morning.

Ethiopian Y B, 25, confessed to all charges against her when she appeared at Dubai Criminal Court last June.

She was sobbing uncontrollably at her first court hearing so did not enter a plea until the second hearing.

She confessed to attempting to kill the three children of her Emirati sponsor and confessed that she attempted to kill herself afterwards.

She also admitted the attempted theft of Dh640, and with damaging her sponsor’s property.

All life or death sentences automatically go to the appeals court afterwards.

“The four of them, the mother and the children threatened to kill me,” the maid told the court through a translator from the Ethiopian Embassy.

“When I later asked them to let me go home, they refused and again threatened to kill me.”

Prosecutors said that the maid admitted it was an act of revenge for being mistreated and deprived of food.

She said in records that she planned the crime because her sponsor, L A, a 42-year-old teacher, often accused her of theft and refused to send her home, claiming her passport was missing.

At 7am of April 11 last year, while the mother was out of the country, the maid poured boiling water on the children – girls A A, 15, and R A, 14, and boy K A, 10 – who were sleeping.

She then stabbed them repeatedly with a meat cleaver, and a knife.

The children, bleeding heavily from the face, neck and other parts of their bodies and burned badly, ran from the bedroom to the living room, where the eldest girl tried to call police from the landline but found that the maid had cut its cable.

They then locked themselves in a bathroom and used a mobile phone to call police, prosecutors said.

“We were terrified that she would be able to get us and end our lives,” said A A.

The maid is then said to have went to the mother’s room to take the money and her passport, which was hidden in a drawer.

Emirati policeman A M A, 21, said that they headed to Al Warqa 2 after receiving the report of the incident then had to break down the flat’s door when no one opened up.

He said the children were frightened to open the bathroom’s door but did so when they knew it was police.

“They were bleeding from everywhere and badly burned,” said A M A.

The children were rushed to Rashid Hospital and police said they found the maid sitting on the floor on the flat’s balcony with blood stains on her clothes and the weapons in her hands.

She is then alleged to have tried to slit her own throat before surrendering to police when they raised their guns.

She will be deported after serving her jail term.

salamir@thenational.ae