Symbol caption, Ajay Hinduja (L) and his spouse Namrata arrive with their attorney Robert Assael at a court docket area in GenevaArticle informationAuthor, Imogen FoulkesRole, BBC Geneva CorrespondentReporting from Geneva1 hour agoFour participants of the United Kingdom’s richest circle of relatives are on trial in Switzerland amid allegations they spent more cash taking care of their canine than their servants. The Hinduja circle of relatives, value an estimated £37bn ($47bn), is accused of exploitation and human trafficking.The circle of relatives personal a villa in Geneva’s rich neighbourhood of Cologny, and the costs towards all of them relate to their follow of uploading servants from India to seem after their youngsters and family. It’s alleged that Prakash and Kamal Hinduja, in conjunction with their son Ajay and his spouse Namrata, confiscated workforce passports, paid them as low as $8 (£7) for 18-hour days, and allowed them little freedom to go away the home.Even though a monetary agreement over exploitation used to be reached final week, the Hindujas stay on trial for trafficking, which is a major felony offence in Switzerland. They deny the costs.This week in court docket, certainly one of Geneva’s most renowned prosecutors, Yves Bertossa, when compared the just about $10,000 a yr he claimed the circle of relatives had spent on their canine, to the day-to-day quantity they had been allegedly paying their servants.The Hinduja circle of relatives’s attorneys didn’t particularly deny the allegations of low wages, however mentioned they should be seen in context – noting that the workforce had been additionally receiving lodging and meals. The rate of lengthy hours used to be additionally disputed, with one defence attorney arguing that gazing a movie with the Hinduja youngsters may just now not in point of fact be classed as paintings.Some former servants testified for the Hindujas, describing them as a pleasant circle of relatives who handled their servants with dignity.However the allegations that servants’ passports had been confiscated, and that they might now not even depart the home with out permission, are critical, as a result of they may well be judged as human trafficking. Mr Bertossa is looking for jail phrases, and hundreds of thousands of greenbacks in repayment in addition to felony charges.Darkish facet of GenevaIt isn’t the primary time that Geneva, a hub for world organisations in addition to the arena’s rich, has been within the highlight over the alleged mistreatment of servants. In 2008, Hannibal Gaddafi, son of Libya’s former dictator Muammar Gaddafi, used to be arrested in his 5 famous person Geneva lodge by way of police performing on data that he and his spouse were beating their servants, together with with a coat hanger. The case used to be later dropped.Nevertheless it led to an enormous diplomatic row between Switzerland and Libya, with two Swiss voters arrested in Tripoli as a retaliatory measure.Simply final yr, 4 home employees from the Philippines introduced a case towards certainly one of Geneva’s diplomatic missions to the United International locations, claiming that they had now not been paid for years.The Hinduja’s ongoing, prime profile case will draw consideration, as soon as once more, to the darker, uglier facet of the town that likes to name itself “the town of peace”.
