A HOUSEMAID has gone on trial for setting her employer’s home on fire while she was still inside.
The 24-year-old Kenyan appeared in the High Criminal Court yesterday, where she pleaded not guilty to arson and damaging private property.
She is said to have confronted her employer, a 55-year-old Bahraini woman, at her house in Muharraq on February 9 about her wanting to speak to her family back home.
However, when the latter refused the defendant allegedly set alight a bedroom on the ground floor using matchsticks, which quickly spread to the rest of the house.
During questioning by prosecutors, the defendant admitted to the charges and claimed she set the house ablaze in revenge because her sponsor refused to pay her salary and would not allow her to speak to her family.
“What I am accused of is true,” she said in her statement to the Public Prosecution.
“I went to my sponsor and told her that I wanted my salary and that I wanted to speak to my family, but she refused.
“She told me she would not give me her mobile phone to call my family and that I should wait for her son to come home. She then called me stupid and went into her room and locked the door.”
In the statement she added that she set a blanket on fire in the bedroom of her employer’s daughter which quickly spread, causing smoke to fill the entire house.
“I heard my sponsor scream and I fled from the burning house, but I was arrested shortly afterwards in the same area,” she said.
“I was enraged and used matches to set the blanket on fire.
“I did this because the Bahraini family mistreated me and always complained about my cleaning.”
However, the Bahraini employer denied the allegations and told prosecutors during questioning that the maid started screaming and was in an “abnormal state” that night.
She also described how she was nearly killed in the fire and suffered from smoke inhalation.
“Our maid approached me about her phone and I did not understand her because she was speaking in English,” she said in her statement written in Arabic.
“I told her I will phone my son to solve her problem but she started screaming at me.
“I then went to my bedroom on the ground floor and locked myself in because I saw she was in an abnormal state and I was afraid of her.
“I then saw smoke coming into my room from under the door and when I opened the door I saw my daughter’s room and the living room on fire.
“I could not breathe from the thick smoke and was about to faint.
“I luckily managed to find my way to the garage and started yelling for help.”
The hearing was adjourned until June 2 for review.
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