Syrian, Lebanese couple investigated over Filipina found in Kuwait freezer

Interpol is tracking the employers of Joanna Daniela Demafelis, a Filipino worker whose body was found in a freezer in Kuwait.

The employers were identified as Nader Issam Assaf, Lebanese, and his wife, Mona Hassoun, Syrian.

The body of Demafelis, who arrived to work for the couple in Kuwait in 2014, was found in the couple’s freezer at their home in Kuwait’s Hawally.

والدتها ايفا، تحمل صورتها حين تحدثت عنها الى محطة تلفزيونية محلية أجرت معها مقابلة

Assaf, his wife and two children fled Kuwait in November 2016. The apartment’s owner only recently got a court permission to enter the apartment.

Officials were hoping that Assaf and his wife will be arrested as they thought they were in Lebanon. However, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai reported that they are in Syria.

According to Al-Rai, Assaf reported that Demafelis went missing two days before he and his family fled Kuwait.

Assaf, who grew up in his paternal aunt’s house in Beirut, is believed to be controlled by his wife according to his relatives who said he cannot even smoke in front of her.

“It’s impossible. My nephew would never kill anyone,” his aunt told Al-Rai, adding that she raised him after his father left his mother.

“The last time we saw him was around two years ago when he came for his father’s funeral. He then returned to Kuwait and we later learnt that he went to Syria,” she added.

“Maybe his wife is behind the crime. She is edgy and he always feared her. He once let her kick his mother from their house in Kuwait,” Assaf’s cousin said.

His relatives added that Assaf’s mother once visited him in Syria and when she returned she said he looked “mentally instable.”