Texas: Judge orders Muslim couple who enslaved women be deported, forever

Posted on February 11, 2016 by creeping   

Source: Couple banned from America after treating two women as slaves | Daily Express

A US judge ordered the Qatar military officer and his wife to be expelled immediately after he heard how the two servants were forced to live in squalor while they enjoyed the lap of luxury in their upscale San Antonio home.

Hassan al-Homoud, 46, who received military training at San Antonio’s Camp Bullis, and his wife, Zainab al-Hosani, a citizen of the United Arab Emirates, pleaded guilty to federal charges in December.

District Judge Orlando Garcia said he had hoped to hand down a harsher sentence than deportation in the case, since engaging in forced labour is a crime punishable by up to 10 years’ in prison.

But a plea agreement was offered to the couple because the servants – one from Bangladesh and the other from Indonesia – refused to testify against them.

Homoud pleaded guilty to visa fraud while his wife pleaded guilty to knowing that a felony was taking place and failing to report it.The couple also agreed to pay $60,000 (£41,000) compensation to each of their victims.The court heard that the duo kept the servants in primitive conditions, withholding their wages, confiscating their mobile phones and passports, and giving them barely enough food to survive.

Judge Garcia said the couple would be immediately removed from the country and never allowed back.The servants told officials they had never been paid and a federal affidavit said they were forced to live in a “run-down apartment with no furnishings, no linens, utensils, clothing, television, reading material or even toilet paper”.The US. Attorney’s office said Hosani had “threatened the workers with arrest and incarceration in Qatar if they failed to perform their work obligations”.

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Related: A black Nigerian couple in Katy, Texas was also in court recently for enslaving at least one worker.