Maid admits to killing love child in Dubai flat

A housemaid has admitted in a Dubai court to smothering her love child to death with a piece of cloth. During her trial at the Court of First Instance on Wednesday, the 32-year-old Filipina admitted to a murder charge.

She confessed she had suffocated the baby boy by stuffing a piece of cloth inside his mouth. The incident took place inside the toilet of her female sponsor's sister's house in Al Qusais on September 16.

The 36-year-old Filipina sponsor's sister, who works as an air hostess, said: "Around 1am, I saw the accused exhausted and she told me it was because of her menstrual pain. She then went to the toilet and stayed there for about two hours. I knocked on the door to check on her several times but she did not open.

"When she got out later, she held a plastic bag which she put near the kitchen's door. She rushed to sit on a chair. I urged her to let me take her to hospital as she looked quite tired and unwell but she would not let me. I could see she was bleeding a lot."

The witness added: "At 3pm, we had to call an ambulance to take her to hospital. A doctor there told us the maid had just given birth and that was why she was bleeding."

A forensic expert concluded in her report the maid's baby was born healthy and alive and that the cause of death was heart and breathing failure due to suffocation.

A police lieutenant said they went to the flat in Al Nahda, Al Qusais, after getting informed by a hospital about an illicit pregnancy case. "We found blood all across the main room. There was a bag containing lots of women's clothes, and under the clothes was a dead newborn with a piece of cloth inside his mouth."

During the next hearing scheduled for January 3, a defence lawyer will be named to represent the maid after she told the presiding judge she did not have one.

mary@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai

Marie Nammour

mary@khaleejtimes.com