Maid arrested after collecting parcel containing illegal pills

The maid was arrested after picking up the package, addressed to her sponsor, which was found to contain illegal pills.

ABU DHABI // A housemaid who went to collect a package addressed to her Emirati employer was arrested when the parcel was found to contain illegal psychotropic pills.

The Filipino maid’s lawyer told the Criminal Court her client had no intention of bringing illegal drugs into the country because she did not know or have anything to do with the order of the parcel and its contents.

The lawyer also argued that a customs inspection of the package was invalid because it was conducted in her client’s absence.

“Investigations were absent too,” the lawyer said. “During police questioning, the defendant said the package belonged to her sponsor, but no one summoned her sponsor or asked him, even though he has authorised medical reports for these pills.”

The employer’s son told the court his father was in London receiving medical treatment for addiction. “He has been there more than 20 times. And his medical report indicated these medications.”

The court asked him if his father had instructed the housemaid to pick up the parcel.

“Yes, but it contained extra medication that was not prescribed in the medical report, we don’t know who put it there,” he said.

He said he did not know the names of the pills his father was taking, but he had been on them for a long time.

The maid, he said “has no connection to them, she just went to pick up the parcel”.

The case was adjourned.