(NewsNation) — A New York student who has been detained in the United Arab Emirates since mid-July has reportedly been released.
According to Detained in Dubai, Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos boarded her flight home to New York late Tuesday evening after her one-year prison sentence was commuted.
The 21-year-old was accused of “assaulting and insulting” Dubai airport staff after “humiliating treatment.” The Lehman College student stopped in Dubai for a connecting flight in July where she alleges she faced a degrading search when she went through security.
De Los Santos claims that at the airport, she was told to take off a medical waist trainer she received after a surgery, but when she needed help getting the compressor back on, she says they refused to help and gave her “nasty stares.”
“I was feeling uncomfortable and afraid. I felt really violated. I felt really embarrassed and taken advantage of,” she said.
De Los Santos says she tried to reach out of the area to call her friend for help, but a female customs officer was in her way.
“I gently touched her arm to guide her out of the way, then desperately started crying to my friend for help,” De Los Santos told Detained in Dubai.
After allowing De Los Santos to redress, they reportedly detained her for “touching the female customs officer.” Once she signed a form in Arabic, she was allowed to leave the airport. But hours later, a travel ban was issued against her and she was ordered to pay a 10,000 AED fine, which equates to $2,722 USD.
Despite paying the fine, Dubai customs officials appealed her sentence. Detained in Dubai says the New York student spent five months there in “anguish.”
“A judge previously ordered she pay a fine of around $2,700 which she did and that could have been the end of it. The customs officers weren’t satisfied though,” Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, said. “They appealed the sentence and told her they wanted to see her in jail. The vindictiveness of accusers is largely driven by the likelihood that they will be offered compensation to drop the case.”
According to Stirling, news that De Los Santos’ sentence would be commuted was a “welcome end to Elizabeth’s hellish five months in Dubai that left her humiliated, traumatized and out of pocket $50,000.”
Stirling said the U.S. Embassy and Congressman Ritchie Torres helped in the release of De Los Santos.
NewsNation’s Taylor Delandro contributed to this report.