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29 March 2024

Housemaid accused of killing baby

Picture for illustrative purpose only.

Published
By Eman Al Baik

A 29-year-old Ethiopian housemaid allegedly smothered her newborn baby girl born through an adulterous relationship by putting her in a bag and keeping it closed for about six hours, the Dubai Criminal Court heard.

JAA is accused of premeditatedly killing her one day-old baby girl by wrapping her in a cloth and putting her in a bag and closing the bag with the intention to kill her. The accused denied killing the baby and claimed that she was born dead. However, the forensic report said the baby was born alive and she was fed milk and the cause of her death was suffocation.

AMI, 17, Emirati student, testified that the accused had been working for the family since July 2011 and used to stay in the helpers’ quarter in their villa’s yard. On April 26, the maid excused herself from housework, saying she is tired. On the following day, the family asked her to go out with them and were in fact intending to deport her.
“When the maid went to the bathroom, my grandmother  started searching her bags. She searched the first bag and was opening the second one when the maid came out of the bathroom.  She tried to prevent her from carrying on with her search but my grandmother insisted. Then the maid pulled out a wrapped piece of cloth and towel and said that there is a baby in it. She claimed that she brought the baby from outside. Checking the wrap we found a dead baby,” he testified.

The grandmother, AHS, 60, repeated the same testimony.

Police investigated the case and found out that the baby must have born alive after nine months of pregnancy. Forensic reported that the baby’s lungs were in ‘floating’ condition which clearly indicated that she had breathed air after delivery, contrary to the mother’s claim that she was born dead. Also, milky residues were found in her digestive organ in addition to hard waste in her intestine which means that the baby was fed more than once.

Forensic report that, from the wet condition of the umbilical cord, it appears that the baby was born either on April 25 or 26. Suffocation, and not the baby’s head injury, was the cause of her death, the report said.
The accused confessed before the police that the baby was the result of her adulterous relationship with AK who is being prosecuted by the Misdemeanor Court with JAA for adultery.

Records did not mention how JAA met AK and whether she continued her relationship with him after joining her employer. It also did not mention whether he asked her or encouraged her to kill the baby.

The accused claimed that the baby was born dead on April 26.

“She was not moving when she was born. I cut the umbilical cord with a knife which was in the room.  I wrapped her in a cloth and put her on the bed at 8am.   I was very scared that my adulterous relationship with a man would be discovered. I wrapped her body in a towel and put her in a bag and closed it until 2pm,” she testified.

Later the accused admitted before the police to giving birth to a live baby girl in her room and that nobody was with her when she delivered the baby girl on April 26, testified police officer Saeed Salem.
She admitted that she had put the baby in a bag and closed the bag so that nobody would discover her illegal and illicit relationship with a man that resulted in the baby.

She confessed to having adulterous relation with a man in August 2011. Police arrested AK with whom who she claimed she had adulterous relationship.

Forensic reported that AK was the real father and the accused was the real mother of the baby.

The accused, however,  again giving birth to a live baby when she appeared before the prosecution and on Monday when she appeared in court.

“I gave birth to a stillborn baby. I did not kill my baby but she was born dead,” JAA told the jury presided by judge Hamad Abdullatif Abdul Jawad who ordered the appointment of a defence lawyer and to reconvene on October 15.

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