Four members of Britain's richest family, known as the Hindujas, who have been accused of human trafficking and exploiting staff at their Geneva mansion, will have their fate decided in a Swiss court on Friday.
Prosecutors said the Hindujas, whose fortune is estimated at 37 billion pounds ($47 billion) by the sunday timeHe spent more money on his dog than on his servants.
The charges stem from the family's practice of importing servants from their native India. The sentence is expected at 4:00 p.m. local time (2:00 p.m. GMT).
Prakash and Kamal Hinduja, along with their son Ajay and wife Namrata, are accused of confiscating their servants' passports once they were flown to Switzerland.
Prosecutors allege that the Hindujas paid their staff a pittance and gave them little freedom to leave the house.
The family denies the allegations and claims prosecutors wanted to “do it in Hindujas.”
The Hindujas reached a confidential out-of-court settlement with the three employees who made the allegations against them.
Despite this, the prosecution decided to continue with the case due to the seriousness of the charges.
The first prosecutor of Geneva, Yves Bertossa, requested a custodial sentence of five and a half years against Prakash and Kamal Hinduja.
Both, aged 78 and 75 respectively, had been absent since the start of the trial for health reasons.
In his final speech, the prosecutor accused the family of abusing the “asymmetric situation” between a powerful employer and a vulnerable employee to save money.
Domestic staff received a salary of between 220 and 400 francs ($250 and $450) per month, far below what they could expect to earn in Switzerland.
“They are profiting from the misery of the world,” Bertossa told the court.
The defense argued that prosecutors overstepped their bounds.
But defense lawyers for the Hinduja family argued that the three plaintiffs received ample benefits, were not kept in isolation and were free to leave the villa.
“We are not dealing with abused slaves,” Nicolas Jeandin told the court.
In fact, the employees “were grateful to the Hindujas for offering them a better life,” said fellow lawyer Robert Assael.
Representing Ajay Hinduja, lawyer Yael Hayat criticized the “excessive” allegation, arguing that the trial should be a matter of “justice, not social justice.”
His wife Namrata's lawyer, Romain Jordan, also called for an acquittal, saying prosecutors were trying to set an example for the family.
He argued that the prosecution had failed to mention payments made to staff in addition to their cash salaries.
“No employee was cheated out of their salary,” Assael added.
Some employees even asked for raises, which they received.
With interests in oil and gas, banking and healthcare, the Hinduja Group is present in 38 countries and employs around 200,000 people.
