New York Student Back In US After Being Detained In Dubai For 5 Months Over Airport Altercation
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Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos was released and is back in the United States after being detained in Dubai for five months.
“Elizabeth boarded her flight home to New York late Tuesday night. The news that her sentence would be commuted was a welcome end to Elizabeth’s hellish 5 months in Dubai that left her humiliated, traumatized and out of pocket US$50,000,” Radha Stirling, the CEO of Detained in Dubai, the organization that represented Polanco De Los Santos, said in a press release.
Earlier this week, the 21-year-old American student was sentenced to one year in jail after being accused of “assaulting and insulting” airport staff during a layover on July 15. Polanco De Los Santos had been denied boarding and told to remove her doctor-mandated waist-training brace.
Stirling says she was “stripped and humiliated” during the ordeal. The student asked her friend for help putting the brace back and touched one of the officer’s arms. This prompted a filed complaint against her and months of detention in Dubai, which was supposed to be a layover while traveling to Turkey for a vacation.
Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos has been FREED & ordered to leave #Dubai after being sentenced to 1 year in prison. A very welcomed diplomatic move and an end to her 5 month nightmare. Thank you @RitchieTorres @USAinUAE, the media & the public.
— Radha Stirling – CEO @detainedindubai (@RadhaStirling) October 3, 2023
Polanco De Los Santos was fingerprinted and met with police at the airport, where they returned her passport, according to Sterling.
“I’m so happy I really need this all off my chest,” the student wrote in a text message exchange with Sterling.
A New York college student, Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos, was sentenced to one year in a Dubai prison for alleged assault and insult of an airport security guard during a flight connection, she intended only a short layover, was trapped in Dubai for months. #Travel #Dubai pic.twitter.com/wnW9khMDUd
— US-Crimes (@OfficialUScrime) October 3, 2023
Earlier this year, another American, Tierra Young Allen, was detained in Dubai for months after being accused of yelling in public and violating the state’s obscenity law.
Sterling, who also worked on Allen’s case, is calling on American tourists to reconsider traveling to Dubai, a popular destination.
“Tourists are vulnerable to vindictive, false and unevidenced allegations that could leave them languishing in notorious jails,” she wrote. “They are vulnerable to extortion schemes like we see from airport staff, rental car agents, taxi drivers and so on.”
