Four members of the richest family of Indian origin in the United Kingdom, the Hindujas, masters of an intercontinental economic-financial empire and firmly at the top of the annual ranking of British nabobs drawn up by the Sunday Times with a fortune estimated at over 37 billion pounds (almost 44 billion euros), were sentenced to prison by Swiss justice for the systematic exploitation of employees in their villa on Lake Geneva, forced to work shifts and inhumane conditions for starvation wages.
The spouses Prakash and Kamal Hinduja , aged 78 and 75 respectively, were given a prison sentence of four years and six months, while their son Ajay (56 years old) and the latter's fifty-year-old wife, Namrata, were sentenced at four years old . The Geneva court instead acquitted them of the even more serious accusation of human trafficking, presented by the public prosecutor Yves Bertossa, according to which the staff employed in the villa, once they arrived from India, were deprived of their passports and subjected to a reduced freedom of movement.
Among the many embarrassing details for a dynasty with Indian origins but then moved to Switzerland and Great Britain, with economic interests in the most diverse sectors, from oil to gas, up to the banking sector and healthcare - controlled by the Hinduja Group present in 38 countries and with 200,000 employees - the most striking one concerns the expenses incurred in the mansion immersed in luxury to keep a single dog, which were higher than those to pay the employees . On average, domestic servants who took legal action against their employers were paid less than 8 euros a day, paid not in Swiss francs but in Indian rupees, for shifts of up to 18 hours.
The president of the Geneva court, Sabina Mascotto, did not mince her words in pronouncing the sentence: "The defendants' motivations are selfish" and driven "by greed". The lawyers of the four Hindujas, all with Swiss citizenship and not present in the courtroom, have already made it known that they will appeal.
(Unioneonline/D)