A US court has dropped human trafficking charges against a Saudi princess who was accused of holding a Kenyan servant as a virtual prisoner in her California home.
Prosecutors on Friday said that the domestic servant living with Meshael Alayban, a wife of Saudi Prince Abdulrahman bin Nasser bin Abdulaziz al Saud, was not held against her will.
The announcement was made during what was expected to be the Saudi princess’s arraignment on charges which carried a penalty of up to 12 years in prison.
After the 30-year-old servant finally left Alayban’s condominium in July, she went to the police and told the authorities that she escaped because the princess did not allow her to leave the home in Irvine.
But Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas told reporters, “The evidence indicates very strongly at this point that the (domestic servant) was not actually the victim of human trafficking, and so this case had to be dismissed”.
However, Rackauckas said, “I don’t think (the servant) was lying to us. I think that there was a lot of misunderstanding and misapprehension”.
According to the Kenyan woman, the Saudi princess forced her to work 16 hours a day, seven days a week, for only $220 a month, dramatically less than the $1,600 a month she had been promised.
She also said that she was denied medical care, and her passport was confiscated by the family when she arrived in Saudi Arabia to work for them before travelling with Alayban to California in May.
