The owner of several food shops in Eure and Seine-Maritime, prosecuted for human trafficking, was sentenced Monday to one year in prison by the Rouen Court of Appeal.
This Moroccan born in 1960 had been sentenced to the same sentence at first instance, in July 2021, for human trafficking and for having subjected five complainants, all of the same nationality, to unworthy working and accommodation conditions.
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Owner, among other things, of the restaurant "
Le Palais du Maroc
" in Claville (Eure), he did not show up on Monday and is therefore the subject of an arrest warrant, this sentence being added to a previous one of four years for other qualifications.
It was in this restaurant that one of its employees was hired in November 2015. Without papers, he had been promised a monthly salary of 1600 euros, accommodation and administrative regularization.
Dogs to prevent escape
This employee ended up having to work 15 hours a day and sleep on the kitchen floor where he worked.
He had suffered a beating with his son a month later when he demanded to stop work.
This violence in meetings led to a first complaint and then a vast investigation by the gendarmerie, the air and border police, the labor inspectorate and the veterinary services.
The investigation had uncovered other victims who were very poorly paid for the same work, in makeshift accommodation where the shower was weekly, under duress with dogs released at night to prevent them from leaving.
The restaurateur had been tried for the first time in Évreux in 2018 for assistance with the stay and irregular employment of a foreigner, concealed work, false documents, violence in aggravated meeting with ITT and violation of the regulations relating to hygiene.
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Sentenced to four years' imprisonment, three of which were suspended and 298 fines (more than 40,000 euros) for hygiene violations, he then saw his victims, supported by the Committee against Modern Slavery, seize the Defender of Rights and summon their executioner to appear for human trafficking.
“
This file is a first: human trafficking has already been retained for networks of smugglers but not for having made its employees work in appalling conditions
”, explained the Advocate General François Pucheux.
Rights Defender Claire Hédon told AFP that she hoped that "
this decision is part of a more systematic recognition of human trafficking and that the fight against this criminal phenomenon becomes a real priority
".
