Bahrain court upholds life sentence in human trafficking case

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

The Bahraini man who was sentenced to life in prison for encouraging domestic workers to run away from their original sponsors and then trafficking them has had his life sentence upheld by the Cassation Court.

The defendant was sentenced to 10 years in prison but the High Appeals Court increased his sentence to life in prison due to his major role in the crime.

According to court files, the defendant was among 19 arrested for setting up a criminal network to encourage domestic servants to flee from their sponsors, and then hold them up in apartments, where they force them into prostitution.

The defendant was the mastermind of the network, and his co-suspects revealed that they deceived the victims by offering them high salaries in order to agitate them to depart from the families they are working for.

As per the case records, the defendant recruited several men to guard the apartments to ensure that no one from the victims will manage to break away. Seventeen of the defendants were sentenced to 10 years in prison.