AL AIN // A Filipina maid given the death penalty for killing her Emirati employer in 2014 will learn her fate next month, after the Court of Appeals postponed its judgement on Monday.
This is the second time the court postponed its ruling, which was originally scheduled February 27 then moved to March 27.
Jennifer Dalquez, 28, from General Santos City in the southern Philippines, was sentenced to death by an Al Ain court in May 2015.
She claimed to have stabbed her Emirati employer in self-defence because he tried to rape her on December 7, 2014.
On Monday, Manila’s foreign affairs department said the court will issue its verdict on April 12.
“The court postponed its decision to April 12 because one of the victim’s children did not appear in court today,” said its spokesman, Charles Jose.
On February 27, the Philippine embassy said the court had instructed the victim’s two children to attend the next hearing on March 27.
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.
Philippine ambassador to the UAE Constancio Vingno, who met with the mother-of-two in prison on February 8, has assured Dalquez that the embassy would continue extending all possible assistance.
She has spent more than two years behind bars while the case is being heard.
The mother-of-two had worked in the UAE since 2011. She was due to return home in January 2015.
rruiz@thenational.ae
