News Defendant in Andelfingen cage trial asks for forgiveness

The 46-year-old Swiss man who kept two domestic servants in cages with the help of his wife apologized to the district court of Andelfingen ZH on Wednesday. "I paid too little attention to the women's sensitivities", he said.

He had broken rules and overstepped the mark, the accused said in his closing statement. "But this story will not be repeated." He had learned in therapy how he could legally act out his need to exercise dominance, the bondage lover with narcissistic personality disorder promised.

His Filipino wife also asked the two imprisoned domestic servants for forgiveness in her closing words. "I was manipulated by my husband. But I had doubts." Her mistake was that she did not listen to these doubts. The Andelfingen district court is expected to hand down its verdict against the couple on Thursday of next week.

The husband commands

On the second day of the "house slave trial", the woman's lawyer demanded a full acquittal. His client had in no way had a "prison guard function", as the prosecution accuses her of. She admitted that she had "occasionally helped to put on the shackles and push the cage door shut". But only when her husband was not there. "She did what her husband told her to do."

The prosecutor does not believe this account. "She was not just an instrumentalized puppet of her husband," she said. Even a submissive position would not have prevented her from being empathetic and asking the women how they were doing. "She decided against the victims and in favor of her own material needs in Switzerland."

She is demanding a conditional prison sentence of 10 months for the Philippine woman for multiple counts of aiding and abetting the deprivation of liberty and that she be expelled from the country for five years.

Up to 17 hours in the cage

The husband is accused of recruiting and exploiting two young foreign women as "house slaves" with false promises. He allegedly locked them in a cage for up to 17 hours a day. The rest of the time they had to clean in maid's uniforms for 800 francs a month.

If they made a mistake, they were punished by the "Dom", the dominant man. One possible punishment was that their hands were tied behind their backs or they had to wear tight gloves.

The police ended the "setting"

The first victim had to live under these conditions for 10 months until his escape, the second for four weeks. Then the "contractually agreed setting", as the accused called it, was ended by the police. The first victim filed a complaint.

The man has been charged with human trafficking and deprivation of liberty, among other things. Because he has confessed, the proceedings are being shortened. This means that the accused and the public prosecutor's office agreed on a proposed sentence.

The court can then pass sentence on this. The man then receives a partially conditional prison sentence of 36 months, of which he is to serve 9 months. He has already served five months of this in pre-trial detention. However, it is also possible that the court will reject the abbreviated procedure and send the case back to the public prosecutor's office.

SDA