Abuse of slain Villavende started in October 2019 —Kuwait report

The abuse of slain Filipino worker Jeanelyn Villavende started as early as October last year, an unofficial translation of the report from Kuwait’s government stated.

The report was brought out during a Senate labor, employment, and human resources development committee hearing by Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Sarah Lou Arriola.

She said they received the report of the General Department of Criminal Evidence Forensic of Kuwait's Ministry of Interior on Friday. She said it was in Arabic.

“We have an unofficial translation that we could share with the committee, this is the autopsy of Kuwait [on Villavende],” she said.

Arriola also said that there are “some similarities” between the Kuwaiti report and the the National Bureau of Investigation's autopsy report.

“Quite interesting is the content of the prosecutor’s memorandum that the abuse began in October,” she said.

“The prosecutor’s memorandum is very telling because it says the abuse started in October until December 22, 2019,” she added.

Arriola said that according to the report, Villavende was assaulted with an iron on her shoulder and "beaten on the head and back of face."

Senator Joel Villanueva, committee chairman, said the report also stated that Villavende was “kicked on the waist, stabbed with a vehicle key on her back.”

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello clarified that the first document sent by the Kuwaiti government to the Philippines was not an autopsy report but a death certificate which states that Villavende's heart and lungs failed due to “shock and multiple injuries vascular nervous system [sic].”

An autopsy conducted by NBI showed that  Villavende died of "multiple, severe, traumatic injuries," and there were signs that she was sexually abused.

Villavende was killed allegedly by her own Kuwaiti employers, one of whom was a member of the Kuwait Ministry of Interior, last December, only five months after she left the Philippines to work in Kuwait.

Bello said that the suspects have been charged with murder. — BM, GMA News