Dubai: A housemaid has been jailed for five years for attempting to abort her six-month-old foetus and killing the infant after 10 hours.

The Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the 30-year-old Indonesian housemaid, H.S., of killing her illegitimate baby after trying to abort him with the help of a 32-year-old Bangladeshi cleaner, M.M.

The court also jailed M.M. for three years and fined him Dh10,000 for practising medicine illegally and carrying out abortions without being licensed to do so.

Pronouncing yesterday's judgment in courtroom nine, Presiding Judge Al Saeed Mohammad Barghout, however, acquitted H.S. of disposing off the infant's body.

A 34-year-old Indonesian housemaid, N.D., was also jailed for three years for having sex out of wedlock, that resulted in an illegitimate pregnancy, aborting her foetus, and disposing it off.

Abetting crime

Presiding Judge Barghout also jailed a 36-year-old Indonesian housemaid, B.T., for three years because she had aided and abetted M.M., H.S. and N.D. in the illegal abortions.

A fourth Indonesian housemaid, 29-year-old F.S., was fined Dh1,000 for concealing information from the police about the abortions. All the defendants, except F.S., will be deported.

Prosecutors accused H.S. and N.D., who were less than six months pregnant each, of willingly aborting their foetuses.

H.S. was further accused of murdering her baby, who was alive following the failed abortion bid.

According to the arraignment sheet, M.M. practised medicine without obtaining permission from the health authorities and had facilitated abortion in the two women. He gave injections and abortion pills to H.S. and N.D.

Reinvestigation

Prosecutors had referred the case in 2010 to the Court of First Instance that was presided by another judge.

Judge Hamad Abdul Latif Abdul Jawad, who presided over the previous jury, referred the case back to prosecutors to reinvestigate the crime of killing the 10-hour-old baby. Prosecutors had not investigated that particular crime then.

Charges modified

On May 8, 2011, prosecutors referred the case back to Presiding Judge Barghout's jury, modified H.S.' charges and accused her of killing the baby.

H.S. and N.D. confessed to aborting their foetuses, but H.S. denied her murder charge. Meanwhile, the cleaner, M.M., pleaded not guilty.

An Emirati policeman said an informant had warned them that M.M. aided Indonesian women, who had conceived out of wedlock, to abort their foetuses.

The primary judgment remains subject to appeal within 15 days.