A New York City college student sentenced to a year in prison for touching the arm of a Dubai airport security guard has been released after “5 months of hell” and will return home.
Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos, a Lehman College student, “is excited to return to the US after five months of suffering,” the Dubai-based advocacy group Detained said in a statement on Tuesday.
The 21-year-old’s sentence was commuted a day after he was ordered to jail for a July incident in which he was accused of “assaulting and insulting” a female airport worker.
“Elizabeth boarded her flight back to New York late Tuesday night,” Detained in Dubai CEO Radha Stirling said in a release. “The news that her sentence will be commuted is a welcome end to Elizabeth’s 5 months in Dubai that left her humiliated, traumatized, and $50,000 out of pocket.”
The advocacy group later shared a string of messages between Bronx and Stirling college students.
Los Santos confirmed to the CEO he appeared in court and was fingerprinted during the day before he was told to meet police at the airport, where he would pick up his passport and board a plane to NYC.
Los Santos is “excited to return to the US after five months of suffering,” said the advocacy group Detained in Dubai. Detained in Dubai / SWNS The college student was first detained for touching the arm of a Dubai airport security guard during a personal check.AP
Los Santos’ months-long detention in the UAE began in July when he embarked on a holiday to Istanbul with a friend following the death of his father and back surgery.
The couple stopped in Dubai instead of Paris on their way back to the US to see the city during a 10-hour layover.
“We thought it would be a more modern and futuristic city but we were completely wrong,” he told the advocacy group.
As he was checked by airport security, Los Santos was asked to remove the waist compression suit that his doctor had prescribed that he needed because of the surgery.
As he was checked by airport security, Los Santos was asked to remove the waist compression suit that his doctor had prescribed that he needed because of the surgery. Family Distribution
He was taken back to a private examination room with plainclothes women who removed the compression suit but it was “rough, painful to his swollen wound when they took the compress off,” Los Santos’ mother told Detained in Dubai.
“I feel uncomfortable and scared. I feel really violated,” said the business arts student.
Los Santos then asks for help to put the complex outfit back on, but the woman just laughs at him and makes him even more uncomfortable.
Los Santos leans over to ask his friend to come help put him on, but as he does so, he calls out to one of the female employees.
“I gently touched his arm to guide him out of the way then desperately started crying to my friend for help,” Los Santos said, according to the agency.
Officers detained Los Santos for hours while the female employee wrote a complaint against the American before a form written in Arabic was brought in for the 21-year-old to sign.
Los Santos’ months-long detention in the UAE began in July when he embarked on a holiday to Istanbul with a friend following the death of his father and back surgery. Arrested in Dubai / SWNS
He spent the last few months moving between different hotels while waiting for the court to hear his case.
In August, a judge ordered Los Santos to pay a fine of 10,000 AED (about $2,700 US) and go home, which was seen as a compensation payment used to extort tourists for side income.
On Monday, prosecutors appealed the verdict, and Los Santos was ordered to serve a year in prison before the sentence was commuted on Tuesday.
Officers detained Los Santos for hours while the female employee wrote a complaint against the American before a form written in Arabic was brought in for the 21-year-old to sign.
Stirling urged the Dubai government to ban workers from demanding such payments because “Dubai’s justice system is routinely abused to extort victims and it is time the US State Department updated its travel warnings to reflect this common practice.”
“We are of course grateful that Elizabeth is on her way home but is it really a happy ending? He should be home in May,” added Stirling.
“Instead, he has been left with the scars of an incomprehensible traumatic experience for a young student, he has lost US$50,000 that will never be compensated. Furthermore, he was convicted on mere allegations, sentenced to a year in prison, fined, and deported. That in itself is a disgrace.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
