Domestic worker who murdered employers’ child to appeal

AMMAN — An Ethiopian domestic helper who was sentenced to death by the Criminal Court for murdering a four-year-old child in Irbid in July 2017 is planning to appeal the verdict, her lawyer said on Thursday.

The court declared the 29-year-old defendant guilty of stabbing the child to death and slitting his throat while in the bathroom of their house on July 22 and handed her the maximum punishment.

Upon hearing her death sentence being read out by presiding Judge Majid Rafayah via a translator, the defendant started crying, a senior judicial source said.

“I am planning to appeal the verdict at the Court of Cassation because my client committed the murder in a moment of rage because she was abused verbally by the victim’s family,” Lawyer Iman Batayneh said.

Batayneh told The Jordan Times that the victim’s family would “often make remarks criticising the defendant for eating a lot in front of people and she could no longer take the shaming”.

Court documents said the defendant, who worked for the family for over a year, arrived to Jordan with them from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

“The family lived in the UAE and were on a visit to Jordan when the incident occurred,” the court papers said, adding that, two weeks before the incident, the victim’s family “made several observations about the domestic helper in front of guest and family members and criticised how she worked and ate, which angered her and she decided to take revenge”.

“The defendant took the child to the bathroom where she slit his throat then went to his mother and asked her to go to the bathroom to see her son,” the court said.

The mother went to the bathroom and was shocked to see her child stabbed and started screaming for help, according to court documents.

The child was rushed to a nearby hospital but was declared dead on arrival, the court documents added.