4/7/08
Seventeen women have been taken by police from a luxury hotel in Brussels amid allegations they had been enslaved by an Arab royal family. Police officers and officials from Belgium’s Labour Audit Authority raided the Conrad Hotel, the preferred choice of many national leaders attending European Union summits, on Tuesday. The operation was triggered by the apparent escape of a maid who was among 20 servants working for the widow of a senior royal figure from the United Arab Emirates and her four daughters, who have rented the entire fourth floor of the hotel for the past year. Officials took away 17 people - from countries including the Philippines, Morocco, India, Egypt, Turkey, Iraq and Syria - amid allegations they had been held captive for eight months.
