Court finds 8 UAE princesses guilty of treating Belgian staff like ‘slaves’

A Belgian court on Friday found eight princesses from Abu Dhabi’s royal family guilty of treating employees they hired in Brussels like “slaves.”

The court sentenced the women in absentia.

Each faces suspended sentences of 15 months in jail and fines of 165,000 euros (184,350 dollars).

The women, the widow of a sheikh and seven of her daughters – were found guilty of human trafficking and treating the workers in a “degrading way” during a 2007 ro 2008 stay in a Brussels luxury hotel.

However, the judges threw out charges of inhumane treatment and noted that no violations of Belgian labour law could be found, since the members of the UAE royalty were not the direct employers of the workers.

(dpa/NAN)