New York college student sentenced to one year in prison in UAE for ‘assault and insult’ at an airport security guard during a flight to Dubai over the summer, according to reports.

Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos, 21, a student at Lehman College in the Bronx, was sentenced Monday after spending nearly three months trapped in Dubai under a travel ban, according to the advocacy group Detained in Dubai.

“Elizabeth only intended to go through Dubai for six hours, but she was stranded there for months and has lost $50,000 in costs and legal fees,” said Detained in Dubai founder Radha Stirling.

“In addition to being humiliated and injured by airport staff, Elizabeth was forced to stay in an expensive country, pay expensive lawyers and lose her university education.’

The student’s ordeal began on July 14, as she and a friend were returning to New York from a holiday in Istanbul.

The original itinerary was to arrive in New York via Paris, but they changed their flight to Dubai so they could see the famous city during the 10-hour layover.

“We thought it would be a more modern and futuristic city, but we were completely wrong,” Los Santos said, according to Detained in Dubai.
While going through security, Dubai airport staff asked Los Santos to remove a waist compression device she had to wear after a recent surgery.

In a private chamber, the female staff members removed the compressor, but according to Los Santos’ mother the female staff’s movements were violent and damaged her daughter’s scars that were still healing from the surgery.

She was also made fun of, she said, and when she asked for help to put the complicated outfit back on, she was refused.

“I felt uncomfortable and scared. “I felt really violated,” Los Santos said.

Staff continued to ignore her pleas for help, and the student leaned in front of the security guard and called out to her friend to come help her.

“I gently touched her hand to get out of the way and then desperately started crying to my friend for help,” he told Detained in Dubai.
Los Santos was then held in a room for hours as the guard who touched her filed a complaint against her and was not allowed to leave until she signed a form written in Arabic.

When she later returned to the airport to catch her flight to New York, she was informed of the travel ban that had been imposed on her and she was forced to remain in the country until the charges against her were tried in court.

After having to stay in hotels for weeks, a judge allowed her to pay US$2,700 and leave, but Dubai prosecutors appealed and she was eventually sentenced on Monday to a year in jail.

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