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SINGAPORE: A woman was found guilty on Thursday (October 15) of poisoning two babies she was caring for, after challenging the charges in court.
Sa’adiah Jamari, 39, was convicted of administering poison to two babies, who were then five months and 11 months old, in 2016. The babies were hospitalized but have since recovered.
The younger boy’s mother had hired Sa’adiah, a registered nurse since 2002, to care for her son after Sa’adiah responded to her Facebook post seeking a babysitter.
However, the mother noticed that her daughter was very sleepy every time she picked her up from Sa’adiah’s house. A first visit to a hospital found nothing wrong with the child, and it was only on the second trip to another hospital in December 2016 that the baby was protected and drugs were found in his system.
Sa’adiah was convicted of giving the boy 10 different drugs, including: Alprazolam, also known as Xanax, intended for anxiety; orphenadrine, a muscle relaxant; zolpidem, to help you sleep; oxazepam, for anxiety and acute alcohol withdrawal; and diazepam, a benzodiazepine used to treat anxiety disorders, alcohol withdrawal, or muscle spasms.
Some of these drugs were found in Sa’adiah’s home and some of them had been prescribed for her.
LEE: Nanny on trial for poisoning 2 babies says she did not give them drugs even though she had some at home
The father of the second victim, the 11-month-old baby, testified that he had dropped off his daughter at Sa’adiah’s home on Christmas Day 2016 to spend a night with his wife.
When the baby was picked up the next morning, she had a bruise on her head, appeared lethargic and fell when she tried to stand up, like she was drugged, the father said.
Deputy Prosecutor Yan Jiakang said Sa’adiah’s statements, defense and court testimony were “riddled with contradictions and outright lies.”
Sa’adiah’s lawyers had argued that the grandmother of the first victim may have put small amounts of drugs in the baby’s food.
Although Sa’adiah admitted to possessing some of the drugs found in her babies, she denied giving any of them to babies.
The trial also revealed that he had received medication from his best friend, a doctor, over the years, including in 2016 when he drugged the babies.
Sa’adiah will be sentenced at a later date. For each count of administering poison with the intent to cause harm, Sa’adiah can be imprisoned for up to 10 years and fined. She cannot be spanked because she is a woman.
