Dubai A housemaid, who stole Dh138,000 in cash and jewellery from the safe of her sponsor while he and his family were on holiday has been jailed for six months.
The sponsor and his family were abroad and had left the 40-year-old maid at their residence in Mirdif in July.
On returning along with his family from holiday, the sponsor discovered that money and Dh120,000 worth of valuables had been taken from the safe he had kept in his bedroom.
The maid was arrested soon after the British sponsor reported the matter to the police.
Initially, the Nepalese maid custody denied any involvement in the crime but a days after her arrest, the gardener informed the Briton that he had found a bag that contained passports, cash money and jewellery thrown behind the garden and handed it over to the maid.
The Briton searched for the bag and found it hidden between his children’s bicycles but the cash and the jewellery were missing.
When the maid called up the sponsor from her detention cell, she contended that she did not know anything about the stolen items but the Briton confronted her with what the gardener had told him.
On Sunday, the Dubai Court of First Instance sentenced the maid to jail for robbing her sponsor. The defendant, who pleaded not guilty, will be deported after serving her jail term.
The Briton said that, when the maid called him from jail, she said that she did not know what was in the bag that the gardener had given her. “She alleged that she put it in her room and did not check what was inside… I didn’t believe her because she was the only person present at the villa when we were abroad. There were no signs of breaking or entering… the gardener told me that when he gave her the bag, she yelled at him,” he testified.
The primary ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
