Dubai: A maid has been accused of killing her illegitimate newborn by suffocating him shortly after delivering the baby inside a washroom, a court heard on Wednesday.
The 32-year-old Filipina maid was staying at the house of her sponsor’s sister in Al Nahda and nobody was aware that she was having an affair that resulted in her pregnancy early this year.
In September, the 32-year-old Filipina suddenly told her sponsor and her sister that she had stomachache before locking herself in the washroom for nearly two hours. When she walked out of the washroom with a plastic bag in her hand, she headed to the couch and collapsed there and had some bloodstains on her clothes, court papers said.
When her sponsor and her sister asked her about her medical situation, she pretended that she was tired and sick of her menstruation before her condition worsened.
Thereafter, the sponsor called up an ambulance and the 32-year-old woman was rushed to hospital and admitted to the emergency ward.
Records showed that the sponsor and her sister were notified that the Filipina had just delivered a baby. Police were also notified. When her situation stabilised, she told the police that she had delivered a baby born out of an illicit relationship and kept him at home.
Law enforcement officers rushed to the flat and discovered a plastic bag containing a foetus. The policeman who checked the bag found a piece of cloth stuffed inside the mouth of the newborn, who was not breathing.
Prosecutors charged the Filipina with killing her newborn by suffocating him with a cloth.
On Wednesday, when she appeared before the Dubai Court of First Instance, the suspect pleaded guilty and told presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi: “Yes I did …”
The Filipina’s sponsor testified to prosecutors that she realised that the suspect was sick and tired.
“When I asked her, she claimed that she was suffering from menstrual pain. Then she entered the washroom where she stayed for nearly two hours. I knocked on the door and asked her to open several times but she didn’t respond. Once she came out, she was carrying a bag that she put in the kitchen … then she came and slept on the couch. When I realised that she had been bleeding I called an ambulance. In the hospital, emergency doctors told us that she had just given birth,” the sponsor claimed to prosecutors.
A police lieutenant, who examined the flat, testified to prosecutors that when he opened the bag, he found a cloth stuffed in the newborn’s mouth.
Presiding judge Al Shamsi adjourned the case to January 3 until a lawyer is hired to defend the suspect.
