AL AIN // A maid who was given the death penalty for stabbing her employer to death in 2014 will have to wait a month for a result on her appeal, which has been postponed.
The maid, 28, from General Santos City in the southern Philippines was convicted of killing the Emirati and sentenced to death by the Al Ain Criminal Court in May 2015.
She said she acted in self-defence because he tried to rape her on December 7, 2014.
The Philippine embassy said the court had instructed the victim’s two children to attend the next hearing. They will be asked to swear before the court 50 times in the name of Allah that the maid, and no other person, killed their father.
“If this happens, the Court of Appeals will uphold the decision of the Court of First Instance. But if the children refuse to swear, then the diya or blood money shall apply,” the embassy said.
The age of the victim’s children was not revealed.
In January 2015, the Philippine embassy in Abu Dhabi provided the maid with a defence lawyer to appeal against her sentence. Expatriate Filipinos are helped through their government’s legal assistance fund.
Embassy officials attended 15 hearings since the case was heard at the Court of First Instance until it reached the Court of Appeals.
On February 6, her defence lawyer presented his arguments to the court.
Representatives from the embassy met the maid in jail 13 times, including visits by former labour secretary Rosalinda Baldoz, former ambassador Grace Princesa and the current ambassador Constancio Vingno.
In October 2015, the maid’s parents were flown to Abu Dhabi to visit their daughter in jail. She has spent more than two years behind bars while the case is being heard.
Mr Vingno said the embassy would continue to help the mother of two, who had worked in the UAE since 2011 and was due to go home in January 2015.
Manila’s foreign affairs department says there are 71 Filipino convicts awaiting the death sentence in prisons overseas — those who were already convicted with finality, still undergoing trial and who have just been charged.
A verdict the maid’s appeal is scheduled for March 27.
rruiz@thenational.ae
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