Maid who cut off employer's penis jailed

DUBAI // A maid who cut off her 77-year-old sponsor's penis with a razor because he allegedly raped her repeatedly was today sentenced to a year in prison.

The maid had earlier told presiding judge Hamad Abdul Latif at Dubai Criminal Court of First Instance, speaking through a translator, that she was defending her honour.

"I did what I did in revenge for all that he had done to me," J?N, 26, from Bangladesh, told the judge.

When the judge asked her why was she crying as she defended herself she said, "Because I am sad because he is my father's age".

"I am guilty but I was driven into doing what I did because he often forced me  into having sex with him and to give him different sexual pleasures after he came into the room and locked it from the inside." she told judge Abdul Latif, who ordered the translator to give the woman all the time she needed to say what she wanted at court.

She said she could not seek help as she spoke only her native language and knew nobody else in the country.

"I want to go home to my family, your honour." she said.

JN was present for her first hearing but could not enter a plea to the charge of causing the man a 40 per cent permanent disability due to the absence of a translator.

According to court records, the maid said that on April 9, her sponsor, M?M, raped her in her room after threatening to throw her out of the house if she did not obey his sexual demands. She said he raped her again the next day.
Around 11am on April 11, while she was in her room, she said M?M asked her to pleasure him.

"I noticed a shaving blade on the cupboard next to the bed," J?N told prosecutors.

She said she started pleasuring him and as he was distracted, she grabbed the blade and cut off his penis. She threw it in the rubbish bin, she said.

M?M began screaming, and J?N ran to another room and hid.

M?M's son K?M, 19, told prosecutors that he woke up to his father's screams. When he saw M?M covered in blood, he called police.

"My father was sitting in a chair opposite my room bleeding severely," K?M said.
K?M said he then saw J?N trying to escape, so he stopped her. Police arrived soon after and M?M was taken by ambulance to Rashid Hospital.

A medical report said that the organ was reattached, but that M?M would suffer a permanent disability.

"It was difficult to determine if the organ's ability to function properly is still available, as the victim said he did not have sex for two years," said a forensics doctor quoted in prosecution records.
The report also said tests could not confirm whether J?N was raped.

salamir@thenational.ae