Dubai: A Dubai housemaid who recorded clips of her sponsor’s family to share it with others was sentenced to six months in jail for threatening to kill the sponsor after her smartphone was taken away from her.
According to Dubai Court of First Instance, the 27-year-old maid from Madagascar threatened to kill herself and her sponsor with a knife after the 48-year-old Emirati woman took her mobile phone to search for the clips and photos.
The maid will be deported after serving her jail term.
In August this year, Dubai Police received an emergency call from a villa in Al Barsha. The Emirati woman claimed that the maid had been working for her family for 15 months before the incident. “I searched for her phone that I had bought for her. It was hidden inside her clothes. She went to the kitchen and took a knife threatening to kill me and herself if I didn’t return the phone to her,” the Emirati woman said in official records.
Dubai Police took the maid to the police station for questioning. “I found that she recorded my children’s activities and took videos of the house without my knowledge and was sending them to others via WhatsApp,” the woman added. The maid had pictures with strangers inside the house. She admitted to threatening to kill her sponsor and recording clips of the family members.
Dubai Public Prosecution charged the defendant with issuing threats, allowiing a stranger to trespass and breaching the privacy of the family by using her smartphone and sharing the clips and pictures with others.
