ABU DHABI // A man only confessed to killing his maid to protect his wife, the Criminal Court heard on Wednesday.
Palestinians M A and his wife R Y, both deny killing the woman, stripping her, pouring toxic substances on her body, and attempting to dispose of her body.
The court was told that they each claimed that the other was responsible for the murder.
When asked by the judge why he had initially confessed to the crime, M A said: “Because she was my wife and had a newborn baby. Her lawyer spoke to me and told me she would have to take oath and a death sentence.”
In his defence he said: “I only carried the corpse from the house to the car. She was alive but could not get up, and she was talking but I did not ask her what happened.
“My wife said she slipped in the bathroom and fell ... I don’t know anything about the burn scars and beatings.”
Although he denied murder, M A admitted he had slapped the maid “once or twice” 10 days before her death.
The court asked M A why they imprisoned the victim and recruited her illegally.
“How was she imprisoned when she had the key?” M A said. “She once locked us out of the house – one who can lock the door from inside can escape too.”
M A said it was too costly to recruit through a maid agency and said they found her on the internet.
Police had previously told the court that the body had been placed in an iron box and both defendants carried it to the car because it was impossible to carry alone. “CID saw the box inside the house and assumed that’s where we placed the corpse,” M A said.
He said he carried the body inside a blanket, and no one used the box.
R Y’s lawyer argued that she had just had a Caesarean birth and it would have been impossible for her to assist with the murder and dispose of the corpse.
R Y claimed everything her husband said was a lie, and that before the killing he scarred the victim’s body with a hot knife because she left their children in the bathtub alone and one of them slipped and fell.
“When I asked him to stop he said: ‘She brought it upon herself’. He always repeated this phrase.”
R Y said on the day of the murder her husband kept repeating “today is the day you die” as he attacked the maid. She said the maid was too scared to get up after she slipped on the soapy bathroom floor and broke the glass shower as a result.
“So I think she pretended she could not get up,” she said. “When my husband arrived and I told him what happened, he said she was faking it and started hitting her legs with the gas pipe. When I tried to stop him he hit me too.”
She said she left the house with her children at that point but later returned to find the victim dead.
The maid’s family will give their decision about whether they will seek a death sentence or accept blood money on December 23.
Prosecutor Hassan Al Hammadi and M A’s lawyer requested an adjournment to present their cases.
R Y’s lawyer said there was no evidence to convict her client of murder and said she did not report her husband because she was scared and he had threatened her.
hdajani@thenational.ae