'Bangladeshi embassy waiting for results of investigation into domestic helper's death'

AMMAN­ — The Bangladeshi embassy on Monday said it was waiting for the results of an investigation by Jordanian officials to transport a domestic helper who was reportedly killed by her employers over the weekend.

The 33-year-old Bangladeshi woman was reportedly murdered by her Jordanian employer in the northern city of Irbid over the weekend.

A government autopsy indicated that the victim had old and new bruises on different parts of her body, including a fatal blow to her head.

“Our lawyer is following up with the Jordanian authorities regarding this unfortunate incident,” Lubna Yasmin, the first secretary at the embassy, said. 

The embassy official added that the next of kin has not been notified yet “because we are waiting for her full identification documents to locate her address in Bangladesh and inform her family”.

“Once we obtain the necessary documents from the Jordanian government and her body is released, we will make all the necessary arrangements to send her back home,” Yasmin told The Jordan Times.

A couple was charged with manslaughter on Saturday in connection with the domestic helper's death by Irbid Criminal Court Prosecutor Qahtan Qawaqzeh.

The couple first claimed that the woman was found unconscious in the bathroom on Friday. But attending physicians at the hospital detected bruises on her body and alerted the authorities.

The suspects were summoned by police and confessed in front of Qawaqzeh that they would “regularly beat up the woman with iron bars, wooden sticks and their hands and feet because she was not good at house work and was not clean”.

They claimed that they had beaten up the victim on Thursday and that “she went to the bathroom to take a shower and sleep there. They left her there and on Friday went to check on her and found her unconscious”, official sources told The Jordan Times earlier this week.

The two suspects told investigators they did not check on her for two days because they “knew that she loved to sleep a lot and that they heard her at one time snoring”, the sources added.

The victim had been working for the man and his wife, who is three months pregnant, for the past year-and-a-half.

The two have three daughters all under five years old.

Both are currently detained at correctional and rehabilitation facilities pending further investigation.

“Qawaqzeh is still questioning witnesses and gathering the necessary investigation and medical reports to refer the case to the court,” a senior judicial source told The Jordan Times.