HOMECOMING

NYC College Student Freed From Dubai Months After Nutso ‘Assault’ Arrest

Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos had been sentenced to a year in prison for tapping a Dubai airport security guard’s arm.

A 21-year-old New York City college student sentenced to a year behind bars in Dubai for touching an airport security guard’s arm is on her way home after having her sentence commuted. Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos boarded a flight Tuesday night and “is ecstatic” to be returning, the advocacy group Detained in Dubai said in a statement. The Lehman College student spent months in detention after she was accused of “assaulting” an airport security guard in July during a layover at the Dubai airport; she insisted she had only tapped the guard’s arm gently to ask for help after security made her remove a doctor-mandated compression garment following back surgery. Detained in Dubai said it is “thankful” she has finally been freed but lamented that she’d been left “humiliated, traumatised and out of pocket US$50,000” from the nightmarish ordeal.