New York student, 21, sentenced to year in Dubai prison after touching airport security guard's arm

Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos was heading to New York after a vacation in Istanbul.

A college student from New York was sentenced to a year in prison by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after “assaulting and insulting” an airport security guard during a layover in Dubai in summer, according to New York Post.

Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos, 21, a student at the Lehman College in the Bronx, was handed her sentence on Monday after being “trapped” for three months in Dubai, because of a travel ban on her, according to the advocacy group Detained in Dubai.

“Elizabeth only intended to transit through Dubai for six hours but she’s been there for months on end and has lost $50,000 in expenses and lawyers costs,” said Detained in Dubai founder Radha Stirling.

“On top of being humiliated and traumatized by airport staff, Elizabeth has suffered months of being forced to stay in an expensive country, pay expensive lawyers and miss out on her university studies.”

The incident that started it all happened on July 14 as she was heading to New York after a vacation in Istanbul. The initial itinerary had a layover in Paris but they changed to a ten-hour layover in Dubai, just to see the famous city.

“We thought it would be a more modern and futuristic city but we were completely wrong,” Los Santos said, according to Detained in Dubai.

During the security check, she was asked to remove a waist compressor that she was required to wear after a recent surgery. She was shown to a private booth where two female guards removed the compressor.

However, they were rough and hurt her daughter’s still healing surgery scars. They also laughed at her, and when she asked for help to put the complicated garment back on they refused, Los Santos’s mother told Detained in Dubai.

“I was feeling uncomfortable and afraid. I felt really violated,” Los Santos said.

The compressor had several pins and one needs to stretch the edges and clip small skinny pins together close to the body, Los Santos said. As the guards continued to ignore her cries for help, the woman leaned past a security guard blocking her way and called out for her friend to come and help her.

“I gently touched her arm to guide her out of the way then desperately started crying to my friend for help,” she told Detained in Dubai.

Shockingly, Los Santos was detained for an hour after, as the security guard that she had touched, filed a complaint against her. She wasn’t allowed to leave until she signed a form written in Arabic. And when she returned to the airport to catch her flight, she got to know that she had a travel ban against her, which forced her to remain in the country until the charges were cleared.

Los Santos stayed in hotels for weeks but a judge allowed her to pay 10,000 AED (about 2,700 USD) and be on her way later. But, Dubai prosecutors contested the order and she was sentenced to a year in prison on Monday.

“She is under the most incredible stress which is impacting her physical and mental health, disrupting her entire life and scarring her long term,” said Stirling. “This is simply no way to treat visitors. It’s outrageous.”