Alex Trelinski
A Cartagena farmer has been jailed for 42 years after Murcia’s Provincial Court found him guilty of sexually assaulting six female labourers and employing them illegally.
Mimoune Zouhir has also been ordered to pay €30,000 in compensation to each of his victims.
Zouhir- a Moroccan national- had a farm at La Palma and exploited Moroccan women by offering them illegal employment,
The woman lacked any support system and could not speak Spanish, but needed the work to send back money to their families in Morocco.
The court ruled that Zouhir ‘took advantage of the women who depended on him for money, and when they were alone, he unwanted sexual relationships with them’.
Women were threatened with ‘deportation’ if they did not accede to his demands.
The judges said there was plenty of forensic evidence of what happened in addition to statements from the victims.
They also heard a phone conversation between him and a worker where he said that if he could not have sex with any of his workers, he would not employ them.
Zouhir also acted as an ‘intermediary’ to get work for labourers at other farms.
The verdict and sentence can be appealed before Murcia’s Supreme Court.
