Dubai: A home nurse told a court that she was beaten and humiliated by her sponsor’s family after she denied the accusation of stealing a laptop and a wristwatch on Thursday.
The 26-year-old Sudanese nurse was said to have been hired by an Emirati family to care for their 81-year-old father last year.
When the elderly sponsor was taken abroad for treatment in October, according to records, the family discovered that the a wristwatch and a laptop had been stolen. The family members apparently found the allegedly stolen items hidden in luggage belonging the nurse, who had asked to leave work and return to her homeland.
The family handed over the nurse to the police after discovering the alleged theft. Prosecutors charged her with stealing a valuable wristwatch and the laptop.
“I did not steal anything, I am not guilty. I was beaten and humiliated by five members of the family and searched at the workplace,” the nurse told presiding judge Urfan Omar.
Her lawyer further argued that the Emirati family had subjected his client to a beating before one of them grabbed her and took her to the police.
The lawyer asked the presiding judge to summon the family members who allegedly beat up his client to record their statements.
One of the elderly man’s sons told prosecutors that they had hired the nurse in June 2016 to look after their father.
“My father had to travel for a medical trip and, in the meantime, we had decided to move the nurse from my dad’s residence to my brother’s. Initially, the suspect refused to move to my brother’s place. When we insisted, she agreed on condition that she would be allowed to keep her luggage at my father’s place; later she said that someone would go and pick up her luggage. Then she said that she wanted to stop working for us and leave the country. Thereafter, when my sister and sister-in-law searched her luggage, they discovered that she had stolen a laptop and a wristwatch that she had kept in her luggage with her belongings,” the sponsor’s son testified.
The trial continues.
