Man jailed to 10 years for sexual assault on minor |09 February 2021

. Another charged and convicted on three counts of human trafficking

The Supreme Court of Seychelles on Thursday February 4 convicted and sentenced a man to 10 years imprisonment for the offence of sexual assault, contrary to Section 130(1) of the Penal Code.

The offence occurred in 2018, and the victim was a minor at the time, as compared to the convict.

In a separate case, the Supreme Court on the same day charged and convicted Israel Labrosse with three counts of trafficking in persons, contrary to the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons Act 2014.

Court is expected to deliver the sentence at a later date, due to restrictions in place amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

In handing down the sentence in the sexual assault case, Chief Justice Ronny Govinden considered the aggravating factors, the age of the victim and the ordeal she went through. The time the convict spent on remand is to be taken into consideration in this sentence.

With regard to the human trafficking case, Chief Justice Ronny Govinden in delivering his judgment made reference to the United Nations Protocol, which broadly defines trafficking, covering direct and more coercive cases where force is used on the victims, to cases where deception, abuse of power and manipulating of the victims is used, stating that the matter at hand involves three main components, namely, the action on recruitment, the means threat and the purpose of exploitation.

As per the facts of the case, the first count occurred in April 2017, when Mr Labrosse trafficked a Bangladeshi national “by recruiting him through deception and misrepresentation of financial incentives and thereafter harboured and exploited him through forced labour, by the use of force or threats”. The second and third counts are the same as the first, save that two other persons, also of Bangladeshi descent, are alleged to have been trafficked.

As the matter is a criminal case, the burden of proof lied on the prosecution, placing on them the onus to prove that Mr Labrosse committed the offence beyond reasonable doubt. At least five witnesses from various concerned entities including the Public Health Authority (PHA) and the Ministry of Employment and Industrial Relations provided evidence in the matter.

The first witness, from the PHA, recalled carrying out an investigation in respect of some Bangladeshi employees working with Israel Construction in 2016, upon which she issued a letter to Mr Labrosse, recommending that each of his employees must be provided with separate facilities, including sleeping area, toilet, bathroom and toilet, as the accommodation which they were sharing was deemed to be dirty, stuffy and overcrowded, failing to meet the required standard of hygiene and cleanliness.

A second witness from the Ministry of Employment, relayed to court how she had attended to a dispute between Mr Labrosse and the three Bangladeshi nationals, whereby it was agreed that Mr Labrosse would pay the outstanding salary payments in instalments of R4500, but failed to abide by his undertaking, leading to a pending matter before the Employment Tribunal. Other witnesses submitted evidence of a similar nature to court.

In testifying against Mr Labrosse, carpenter Selim Reja said that he was not regularly paid his salary, leading him to seek employment with another employee six months after his arrival and taking up a position in Mr Labrosse’s construction company. However, this led Mr Labrosse to quarrel with him, and the police to get involved.

Mason Alauddin Mondial also took up employment with Mr Labrosse in 2017 under a contract of employment in which it was stipulated that his monthly salary would amount to US ($)400, and an additional R1200 was to be provided by Mr Labrosse as grocery allowance. He went on to state that he approached the Department of Employment who pressured Mr Labrosse into paying off the employees dues after he was not paid his salary for five months, but salary payments stopped shortly after as well as grocery allowances, although Mr Labrosse was still providing them with foodstuffs at the time. After working a further eight and half months with Mr Labrosse, for R300 per day according to his testimony, he, along with the two others stopped working for Israel Construction and was residing in a shelter at North East Point, after the police had taken them from Mr Labrosse’s property.

The third complainant Ali Hussein, who also arrived on the same flight as the other two complainants in 2017, also claims that he was paid his first salary five or 6 months after taking up employment, and that by the sixth month he had only received R9000.

In his defence, maintenance contractor Mr Labrosse told court how he had initially agreed to pay the employees USD ($)350 each as salary payments, and he would provide them with food. According to his testimony, he had in 2016 suffered a bad accident leaving him physically crippled until surgery in 2017, which resulted in him failing to manage the business and mounting debts and financial woes.

However, in delivering his judgment CJ Govinden stated that he does not believe the reasons put forward by the accused, and that the credibility of evidence provided by witnesses would suggest that Mr Labrosse recruited the complainants “through deceit, with no intention to pay their fair dues”.

Furthermore, CJ Govinden stated:

“From the beginning, he had no capacity to pay them the salaries and allowances in terms of their contracts. The accused had no other skilled employees in his employment prior to the recruitment of the three employees. His objective was to use their labour, make a profit, and depending on the profit of his business, pay them a salary. He was totally reckless as to the viability of this business venture and his offer to the employees was therefore deceitful to say the least.”

CJ Govinden also pointed out that Mr Labrosse intended to, and did in fact exploit the three employees, who as foreigners in Seychelles were in a position of vulnerability with little or no support, as he intentionally failed to pay them their salaries and allowances as contracted, and the payments are still outstanding to date.

Persons guilty of the offence of trafficking can be liable for a term of imprisonment, as well as a fine, depending on the facts and gravity of the case.

Laura Pillay