Kuwait City – A Lebanese-Syrian couple have been sentenced to capital punishment for the murder of a Filipina maid.
The Criminal Court convicted Lebanese Nader Issam Assaf and his Syrian wife Mona Hassoun in absentia and sentenced them to death by hanging.
The couple were indicted for killing 29-year-old Joanna Demafelis and dumping her body in a freezer for up to a year and a half before being discovered in their rented flat on the 6th of February 2018.
The husband, 40, fled Kuwait on the 7th of November 2016 along with his wife to Lebanon where they stayed for a short period before escaping to Syria.
Lebanese Attorney General Rahif Ramadhan questioned the husband, who was deported from Syria following an Interpol notice, and asked for the death penalty for the killer of Demafelis.
His Syrian wife Mona Hassoun, who is convicted of the crime, has since been detained in her country Syria.
Demafelis's death sparked outrage in the Philippines and a ban on Filipinos traveling to work in Kuwait.
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