• Home
• /
• Crime

Maid jailed for stabbing housewife

The Fujairah Criminal Court of First Instance on Wednesday sentenced an Ethiopian maid to six months in jail and a fine of Dh1,000 for trying to kill her 48-year-old Emirati woman employer by stabbing her repeatedly in the Mirasheed neighbourhood here.

The incident happened in April. The 23-year-old domestic servant, L.A., flew into a rage and stabbed the woman several times, kicked her and tried to smash her head with a mortar handle when the latter’s brother arrived at the house and knocked on the door. On hearing the knocks, she left the employer, escaped through the back door and fled to Abu Dhabi wearing her bloodstained clothes in a taxi.

The Abu Dhabi Police arrested L.A. based on a lookout notice circulated by the Fujairah Police.

She was referred to the Court of First Instance. “While inside the house, L.A., all of a sudden, knifed me on my head, face and back without any explicable reason or provocation,” the victim told the court.

“She did so after closing all doors and windows of the house to ensure that no one would hear my cries. I fell on the floor and bled. She was not satisfied even after that; she began to kick me with her legs and beat me with her hands. She then rushed inside the kitchen and brought the handle of a mortar. I felt a blow on my head. Writhing under pain, I begged her to stop torturing me but she relentlessly beat me,” she said. “She stopped only when she heard knocking on the door and escaped through the backdoor. It was my brother’s timely arrival that saved me from death.”

The victim’s brother called the police and an ambulance, which took her to the hospital with serious injuries. It was only after a huge effort by the medical team that her condition got stabilised.

L.A., meanwhile, took a taxi from Fujairah to Abu Dhabi. On arrival in the Capital, she and the cab driver fought over the fare. The cabbie drove to the City police station to lodge a complaint against the maid. She was arrested after an alert cop noticed the bloodstains on her clothes and the lookout notice issued by the Fujairah Police reached there.

She was sent back to the Fujairah Police to whom she said it was not she who wielded the knife at first. “It was my employer who attacked me with the knife, which forced me snatch it from her hand,” l.A. told the police. The victim denied the maid’s claims and alleged the defendant had also tried to open the safe with the knife to steal money but she could not.

On conclusion of the hearing, the court ordered the maid to stay behind bars for six months and pay a fine of Dh1,000.

news@khaleejtimes.com