Dubai: A housemaid has been jailed for three months for stealing Dh30,000 in cash from her sponsor’s house shortly after she requested to be sent back to her country.
The Ethiopian housemaid, V.S., asked her Emirati sponsor to cancel her visa and send her back home three months after she started work. After the sponsor agreed to do so, he discovered that she had stolen money from his house.
The Dubai Court of First Instance convicted V.S. although she had denied stealing from her sponsor in July.
Records said money transfer receipts in the defendant’s name were found in her possession.
When asked about those receipts, the accused claimed that another maid who worked in the same house had taken her passport to transfer money to her family in Ethiopia.
When she defended herself in court, V.S. said: “The other maid had been staying here illegally and she could not use her passport in order not to get arrested. She took my passport and used it to wire money to her family. She stole the money.”
Presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi said the accused will be deported after serving her punishment.
The Emirati sponsor said the incident happened shortly after V.S. asked them to cancel her residency and send her home.
“My sister went to get the money to buy her a return ticket … the money was missing. She denied taking any money. When we asked her about the receipt that she had from the exchange house to wire her Dh1,000 salary, she said she didn’t take one. The accused claimed that she went with my sister to wire her salary from the exchange house … my sister waited in the car while she went alone to the exchange house. Our driver told me that he took V.S. to the exchange house to wire money. We discovered that she had wired thousands of dirhams. I asked her to return the money that she had stolen and that I would buy a return ticket immediately and send her back to her country. I took her to the police station where she was locked up,” he said.
The ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
