Members of UK’s billionaire Hinduja family get over 4-year jail term for exploiting domestic workers

Four members of the United Kingdom’s billionaire Hinduja family were sentenced to prison terms ranging from four to four-and-a-half years by a Swiss court for exploiting their Indian domestic workers, the Associated Press reported.

They were, however, not found guilty of human trafficking by the court as the prosecution had alleged.

The court found that the four members – Prakash Hinduja and his wife Kamal, and their son Ajay and daughter-in-law Namrata – guilty of providing unauthorised employment, giving meagre health, if any, benefits and paying wages that were less than one-tenth the pay for such jobs in Switzerland, reported AP.

The court also sentenced Najib Ziazi, the family’s business manager, a jail term of 18 months.

According to the prosecutors, the domestic workers alleged that Kamal Hinduja had constituted a “climate of fear”. Working at the Indian-born business tycoon’s lakeside villa in Geneva, the workers were forced to work with little or no vacation time and worked even later hours for receptions.

They slept in the basement, sometimes on a mattress on the floor.

The Swiss authorities have seized diamonds, rubies, a platinum necklace and other jewellery and assets in anticipation that they could be used to pay for legal fees and possible penalties.

The lawyers of the Hinduja family members said that they will...

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