A European prosecutor who urged prison sentences of up to five and a half years at a trial for alleged prostitution and abuse of American workers at their Lake Geneva palace claimed that the wealthy Hinduja home spent more on their pet dog than they paid one of their employees. On Monday, attorney Yves Bertossa cited testimony from the employees and Hindujas as well as information gathered during his research and launched a burning attack on the home at the European city’s criminal court.
” They spent more for one dog than one of their workers”, he said. The woman, he said, was paid at one point as little as 7 Swiss francs ($ 7.84 ) for a working day that lasted as long as 18 hours, seven days a week. He pointed to a budgetary statement with the title” Dogs,” which he claimed showed that the family had spent 8, 584 Swiss francs on their family dog in a year.
Staff contracts did n’t specify working hours or days off, but rather that they be available as needed by their employers, Bertossa continued. Given their passports had been confiscated, they had no Swiss francs to spend as wages were paid in India and could n’t leave the house without their employer’s permission, they had little to no freedom, he argued.
However, Bertossa’s family’s attorneys quickly refuted the family’s states, citing the servants ‘ says that they were treated with respect and integrity. The salary ca n’t simply be reduced to what they were paid in cash, “given their board and lodgings were covered, said Yael Hayat, a lawyer for family scion Ajay Hinduja. Eighteen hr- operating time is also an understatement, she said. Ajay testified during the trial that he had no idea how the Hinduja Group in India handled the owner’s employment problems.
