Dubai maid: Sponsor, 3 children threatened to kill me

Dubai: A maid told a court on Sunday that she attempted to kill her sponsor’s three children after they and their mother threatened to kill her first.

The 25-year-old Ethiopian maid, Y.S., entered a guilty plea before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Sunday after she failed to do so last week due the absence of an Amharic language translator.

Prosecutors are seeking the toughest punishment applicable [15 years in jail] against Y.S., who has been charged with attempting to murder the three Emirati children with boiling water and a cleaver.

“Why did you try to kill them?” presiding judge Maher Salama Al Mahdi asked the defendant through the translator.

“I tried to kill them… but that only happened after they and their mother threatened to kill me. They had refused my request to cancel my visa and travel back home…I was afraid of their threats,” replied the defendant in a weepy voice in courtroom seven.

Prosecution records said the maid attempted suicide twice shortly after she tried to kill her sponsor’s three children, aged 15, 14 and 10, while they were sleeping with boiling water and a cleaver in an act of revenge.

Y.S. poured boiling water on the children’s faces, according to prosecutors, and repeatedly stabbed them with a cleaver wanting to kill them in what prosecutors described as an act of revenge.

The defendant was charged with a triple-murder attempt, double-suicide attempt and theft.

The sponsor’s lawyer lodged against the defendant a civil lawsuit and in which they [children and their mother] are seeking civil compensation for moral, physical and medical damages.

Meanwhile, Y.S.’s court-appointed lawyer asked presiding judge Al Mahdi to adjourn the case until she studies the case file and prepares her defence.

Prosecution records said the Emirati sponsor was forced to go out on a medical trip for two days on April 11, when Y.S. attacked her sleeping children and tried to kill them.

The defendant was cited admitting to the investigating prosecutor that she attacked the children while they were sleeping because she wanted revenge.

“When they locked themselves inside the washroom, I went to my sponsor’s bedroom. I found my passport and took her money,” the suspect was quoted as telling prosecutors.

Record said the children woke up in a state of shock and they were horrified when the suspect stabbed them repeatedly.

The court will hear prosecution witnesses when it reconvenes on June 18.