Thursday, March 31, 2005
This article has more info on the "Saudi Princess" I posted about yesterday. She appeared yesterday in court sporting a striking set of shackles:
Forced-labor charges for Saudi prince's wife
A federal grand jury indicted Hana F. Al Jader on 10 counts of forced labor, domestic servitude, and other immigration offenses, alleging that she hid her servants' passports and work visas and threatened they would be harmed if they failed to perform the work.
Jader, a 39-year-old Saudi national married to Prince Mohamed Bin Turki Alsaud, shuffled into US District Court in Boston yesterday in handcuffs and shackles, wearing a black leather jacket and copper-polished fingernails...
...State records list Jader as president and treasurer of H&A International Inc., a business housed in a Medford condominium building with numerous other companies. Among them is A.N.Y. Corp., run by Ammar Chamo, a relative who co-owns her Winchester home, according to town records.
The federal government is trying to seize both properties that Jader allegedly used in the offenses. The Winchester home, which she and Chamo purchased in 2001 for $635,000, is now assessed at $781,600. The Arlington home is assessed at nearly $1.2 million.
A car marked ''consul" with US State Department license plates was parked last evening outside the large Winchester home, which overlooks busy Cambridge Street and a lake in a leafy area of town. A bedsheet and a New England Patriots banner served as curtains. Neighbors said as many as 20 to 30 people frequent the house, and that many of them live there.
If convicted, Jader could face 20 years in prison for two charges of forced labor; five years on each count of domestic servitude; 20 years on each count of falsification of documents; and 10 years for harboring aliens.
Officials from the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington plan to accompany Jader to tomorrow's hearing, Merberg said. A spokesman for the embassy did not return a phone call yesterday.
Westy Egmont, president of the International Institute of Boston, a resettlement agency, said in a statement yesterday that alleged mistreatment of the two housekeepers is ''unconscionable for a family of such obvious means."
''Unfortunately, other cases from Saudi Arabia indicate the concept of forced servitude is being practiced," he said.
You don't say.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Saudi Slavery Here At Home.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.solomonia.com/cgi-bin/mt4/mt-renamedtb.cgi/4107
, p.39
Leave a comment to: Saudi Slavery Here At Home
Subscribe to This Thread Without Leaving a Comment
Comment Info and Policy:
1) You must have Javascript enabled in your browser in order to comment (blame the spammers). If you don't know what that is, you're probably fine.
2) HTML is on, so basic html should work. Raw links will be made auto-clickable, too, so even if you don't know html you can just paste in the link and it should work fine. Keep the "http://" in it.
3) Comments are generally unmoderated, which means I don't necessarily agree with the tone and tenor of everything posted. In fact, sometimes people post things they don't really mean just to make other people look bad. The internet is an anonymous place for the most part. That said...
4) I welcome you to post here. I'd love to have your input, agree, disagree or just offer a different data point, really. If I didn't want any participation, I'd turn off comments. Be aware, however, that this blog and the comments section exist for my entertainment. Therefore, I reserve ALL RIGHTS here, including the right to remove any or all comments on nothing more than a whim. Please don't even bother complaining. I'm the one providing the space and the free news and thought buffet. I don't owe anyone anything.
Anyone who posts here will be treated as my guest. That means I'm happy to be polite as a default, but if anyone is rude to the host they'll be unceremoniously shown the door.
It may pay to recall a famous line from the Tom Selleck magnum opus, Mr. Baseball: "Jack-san, you want Yoji's advice about the babes, you come to Yoji with respect."
5) Enjoy your stay!