News / Persian Gulf

Kuwait sentences to death foreign couple over maid murder

Sunday, 01 April 2018 2:11 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 01 April 2018 6:34 PM ]

Jessica (C), sister of Filipina overseas worker Joanna Demafelis whose body was found inside a freezer in Kuwait, cries in front of a wooden casket containing her sister's body shortly after its arrival at the international airport in Manila on February 16, 2018. (AFP photo)

A court in Kuwait has sentenced a foreign couple to death over the murder earlier this year of a Filipina maid.

A judicial source said Sunday that the sentence was issued in absentia for a Lebanese man and his Syrian wife who had been charged with the assassination of Joanna Demafelis, the 29-year-old maid whose body was found in a freezer.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the convicts can appeal the ruling, which is death by hanging, if they return to Kuwait, something that seems highly unlikely.

Syria arrested the Lebanese-Syrian couple in February in Damascus based on an Interpol notice. The husband, Nader Essam Assaf, was then extradited to Lebanon while the wife remains in custody in Damascus.

The gruesome murder of Demafelis sparked a serious diplomatic conflict between the Philippines and Kuwait. Manila even imposed a departure ban for its citizens planning to work in Kuwait. Official estimates suggest that some 252,000 from the Philippines work in the Persian Gulf state and many families in the South East Asian country depend on remittances the workers send home.

The murder also sparked fresh concerns about the general plight of workers in Arab countries of the Persian Gulf region who highly depend on foreign labor force. Rights group for long have criticized those countries’ way of treating foreign workers, especially when it comes to “kafala”, a legal system which regulates refugee labor.

In the "kafala," which means sponsorship, workers’ visas are strictly tied to employers while workers are prevented from leaving or changing jobs without prior consent of the employers.

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