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Members of the UK\u2019s wealthiest family, the Hindujas, have been found guilty of exploiting domestic workers at their luxury Geneva villa by a Swiss court. However, they were acquitted of human trafficking charges.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the court sentenced Prakash (78) and Kamal Hinduja (75) to four years and six months in prison, while their son Ajay and daughter-in-law Namrata Hinduja received four-year sentences. The court also ordered them to pay approximately $9.50 lakh in compensation and $3 lakh in procedural fees.<\/p>\n
However, the Hindujas have expressed shock at the verdict and filed an appeal in a higher court. Their lawyers, Yael Hayat, Robert Assael, and Roman Jordan, stated, \u201cOur clients have been acquitted of all human trafficking charges. We are appalled and disappointed by the rest of the decision made in this court of first instance, and we have, of course, filed an appeal to the higher court, thereby making this part of the judgement not effective.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosecutors accused the family of confiscating workers\u2019 passports, preventing them from leaving the villa, and forcing them to work long hours for minimal pay. Some workers, speaking only Hindi, were paid in rupees to Indian bank accounts inaccessible from Switzerland.<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Yves Bertossa revealed that one worker was paid as little as 7 Swiss francs ($7.84) for up to 18-hour workdays, seven days a week.\u00a0 The prosecutors alleged the family spent 8,584 Swiss francs on their dog which is more than they spent on their servants.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the court dismissed more severe human trafficking charges; it upheld convictions for exploiting workers\u2019 lack of local language skills and knowledge. Workers reported a \u201cclimate of fear\u201d and were forced to work without statutory time off or benefits, for wages far below Swiss standards.<\/p>\n
The Hinduja family\u2019s legal team denied the allegations, arguing that staff were treated respectfully and provided proper accommodation. They emphasized their clients\u2019 acquittal on human trafficking charges and expressed confidence that \u201cthe truth will prevail\u201d in the appeal process.<\/p>\n
As per \u2018The Sunday Times Rich List\u2019 published last month, the Hinduja family in the UK has been named the wealthiest in the country, with an estimated fortune of GBP 37.196 billion.<\/p>\n
The family\u2019s conglomerate, led by Chairman G.P. Hinduja, has a presence in 48 countries and spans a variety of industries, including automotive, oil and specialty chemicals, banking and finance, information technology, cyber security, healthcare, trading, infrastructure project development, media and entertainment, power, and real estate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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[ad_1] Members of the UK\u2019s wealthiest family, the Hindujas, have been found guilty of exploiting domestic workers at their luxury Geneva villa by a Swiss court. However, they were acquitted of human trafficking charges. On Friday, the court sentenced Prakash (78) and Kamal Hinduja (75) to four years and six months in prison, while their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Hinduja-Family.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31102,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31100\/revisions\/31102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}