Filipina slapped with 3 charges after throwing away her baby

PROSECUTORS filed three criminal charges against a 37-year-old Filipino woman who was suspected of dumping her baby after taking drugs to induce an abortion.

Eastern Courts’ Principal Magistrate Bina Chainrai adjourned the cases against Maribel Hernandez following the prosecution’s statement that the charges will be heard at the District Court on June 7.

The charges filed against Hernandez included breach of condition of stay, procuring drug with intent to cause abortion, and another charge in relation to the improper disposal of the baby’s remains, which were not found by the police.

Judge Chainrai also told Hernandez that at the District Court, she will again be asked to enter her plea on the charges. Her lawyer said she was reserving her “right to alibi”.

Chainrai also told Hernandez that the Duty Lawyer Service is not available in the District Court and so the defendant must seek the services of Legal Aid if she wanted to have a lawyer during her trial.

Hernandez first appeared in court on January 11, after she was discharged from a hospital in Chai Wan that morning, and was charged with “administering drugs to procure abortion”.

The police allegedly found Pfizer’s Cytotec Misoprostol tablets in Hernandez’s handbag. Cytotec is known to be a drug that induces abortion.

If convicted, a woman in Hong Kong who takes a drug to induce abortion faces a fine and imprisonment of up to seven years.

Hernandez was found bleeding on the morning of January 6 in a subdivided dormitory for domestic workers inside the State Theater Building along King’s Road in North Point.

She was reportedly living there with a friend after her last employment contract ended in June 2014.

The worker was taken to a hospital in Chai Wan where doctors discovered that she had already given birth.

Hernandez admitted that she did and that she dumped the baby in a trash bin along King’s Road.

The woman, who is reportedly married back in the Philippines, allegedly had sexual relations with a Filipino friend in March.

The police searched the trash bins along the roads around the State Theater Building and the land fill in Tuen Mun but they did not find the baby.