Dubai: A court has summoned a forensic examiner again to hear his statement pertaining to the injuries inflicted on a maid, whose female sponsor is being tried for mistreating and torturing her.
In February, the Dubai Court of First Instance had sentenced the 33-year-old Jordanian woman sponsor to one year in jail for torturing the 28-year-old Indonesian maid by banging her head against the wall and shoving a pair of scissors in her ear causing her partial deafness.
The Jordanian woman pleaded not guilty and refuted the accusations.
On Wednesday, the Dubai Court of Appeals did not hand out a judgement as scheduled earlier and adjourned the case until the forensic examiner reappears in court to discuss the details of his report.
The Jordanian woman’s lawyer, Ali Mosabah Dahi, had argued before the appellate court earlier that the maid fabricated the criminal case against his client out of malice after raising a dispute over her salary.
According to the case, the defendant tortured the maid over three years before she absconded and took refuge at the Indonesian Consulate in January 2016.
“My client did not torture the maid or beat her. Her claims were fabricated and the injuries [described in the forensic examiner’s report] are old and not recent,” lawyer Dahi contended in court.
“The court reconvenes on August 30 to hear the forensic examiner’s statement and discuss his report,” presiding judge Saeed Salem Bin Sarm said on Wednesday.
The lawyer argued that the maid did not report [the torture] to the police and had remained working for the defendant for three years.
“She waited for my client to go on leave to her country before the 28-year-old absconded from the house and took refuge at the Indonesian Consulate,” argued lawyer Dahi.
An Indonesian diplomat took the maid to a hospital for a medical check-up before lodging a police complaint, showed records.
Dubai Police’s forensic examiner said the victim sustained partial hearing disability and other injuries due to the beating. The convicted housewife had strongly denied being responsible for inflicting the five per cent permanent disability on the victim by shoving the pair of scissors in the maid’s ear.
“The maid alleged during questioning that my client assaulted her in February 2016 … my client was not present in town, she was visiting her family in Jordan between January and March that year. The maid gave an inconsistent and unfounded statement. Meanwhile, when she was asked why she didn’t report her sponsor to the police earlier, she replied that she did not have the freedom to move and did not have a mobile phone,” said Dahi.
The maid alleged that she had worked for the accused for three years, during which she was constantly tortured and abused.
