The Lebanese employer of a Filipino domestic worker found dead in Kuwait in February was indicted in Lebanon Tuesday for her murder, a judicial source said. The suspect, identified as N.Aa.Aa., born in 1978, was indicted by the appeals Public Prosecutor in the South, Judge Rahif Ramadan, under the Lebanese Penal Code article that carries the death penalty.
Local media reported the suspect – previously identified as Nader Essam Assaf – admitted to murdering domestic worker Joanna Demafelis in Kuwait.
However, the source said the suspect had blamed his wife, identified as Syrian national M.Aa.H., for Demafelis’ death. “During questioning with the public prosecutor, the suspect said he had come home to find his wife angry and the maid passed out,” the source said.
“He said the wife had pushed her after they had a disagreement and the maid’s head had hit the corner of a tile.”
The source said the suspect admitted to putting the body in a freezer, “so that it [wouldn’t] decompose” after he and his wife made sure the woman was dead. Both suspects then fled briefly to Lebanon, after which they went to Syria.
The suspects were arrested in Damascus. Assaf, who is reportedly from the southern city of Sidon, was handed over to Lebanese authorities, while M.Aa.H. remains in custody in Syria.
The crime was discovered when, “11 months after the incident, those who were going to rent out the house found the body,” the source said.
The discovery of Demafelis’ body on Feb. 6 in the freezer in an apartment in Kuwait City sparked outrage and refocused attention on the plight of thousands of Filipinas toiling mostly as maids abroad.
It prompted Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte to ban the deployment of new Filipino workers to Kuwait, where many cases of abuse have been reported.
Separately, a Lebanese man is in custody in the United Arab Emirates after strangling his girlfriend to death in an apparent domestic dispute, local media reported Tuesday.
The suspect, identified in the reports as a 32-year-old Lebanese man, met his girlfriend, a Vietnamese citizen, in 2016 in a Dubai nightclub and proceeded to pursue a romantic relationship with her.
The couple’s relationship turned sour when she requested $15,000 for an apartment payment back home in Vietnam, local news site Tayyar reported.
The suspect later requested she return the money, which reportedly led to the dispute in which he strangled her to death.
A Lebanese Foreign Ministry official was unable to provide details of the case to The Daily Star.
Officials from the Lebanese Embassy in the UAE, as well as Emirati police, were not immediately available for comment.
Reports did not say when the alleged murder took place. It remained unclear when the suspect was arrested, where he was being held in the United Arab Emirates and whether or not an investigation had been launched. – Additional reporting by Madeline Edwards
This article has been adapted from its original source.
