Abu Dhabi: An Indonesian domestic worker facing charges of murdering her Emirati employer’s three-month-old daughter was forced to confess under emotional distress, her defence lawyer told the Court of Appeals on Tuesday.

The defendant, S.T., was appealing her death sentence when she said psychological exhaustion had led her to confess to murder after repeatedly saying the death was unintentional.

Court documents said the suspect had committed the crime out of jealousy towards the child’s Filipina nanny.

“During three interrogation sessions on different dates, my client stood by her claim that the victim fell from her arms by accident. On April 30 this year, however, my client had left the prison around 5am. She was subject to three investigations during the day in different locations, and was present at the public prosecutor’s office until 10pm,” the defence lawyer said.

“This is when she finally confessed, your honour, after having been denied food, water and basic human needs. She was under a tremendous amount of psychological distress which caused her to change her testimony,” he added.

Female witnesses

The defence lawyer also claimed that under Sharia law, female witness accounts are not sufficient to uphold a death sentence.

“The nanny, mother and grandmother were all taken as witnesses even though the grandmother was not at the house when the child fell,” the lawyer told the court.

“Additionally, a fair examination of how the incident reportedly occurred was not conducted. Experts simply dropped a piece of glass on the floor and found that it did not break. This is an unfair comparison to an infant’s skull that is still developing and is more vulnerable than a solid piece of glass,” he added.

The video evidence, which officials said proved that the defendant had committed the crime, was described as ‘unclear’ by her lawyer, who said that the footage only demonstrated the fact that his client had held the crying child.

The verdict will be announced on January 21.

— With input from Haneen Al Noman, intern at Gulf News