VANCOUVER – The trial of the wealthy South Asian woman accused of human trafficking heard a screaming call from the accused’s daughter to the shelter where the alleged victim was staying on the opening day of the woman’s trial.
Mumtaz Ladha is accused of luring a 21-year-old Tanzanian woman to Canada in 2008 with the promise of a job in a hair salon, only to force her to work up to 18 hours a day, seven days a week as a domestic servant in a multimillion-dollar mansion in West Vancouver’s British Properties, reported Canadian Press.
After the woman fled the home in June 2009, Ladha’s daughter Zara requested a copy of the report from West Vancouver Police, Staff Sgt. Graydon Findlay told Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon, who is hearing the case without a jury.
“She advised me she was concerned that her mother, Mumtaz Ladha, who was at that time in Tanzania, had been contacted by (the alleged victim’s) family and advised not to leave until they learned the whereabouts and the health of their daughter,” he testified Wednesday.
“So, essentially, Zara was conveying the fact that her mother had been threatened?” defence lawyer Eric Gottardi asked.
“Correct,” Findlay said.
“She was concerned for her mother’s safety?”
“Correct,” the officer told the court.
The department provided a copy of the report, which included a telephone number for the shelter.
The accused’s daughter made “a very angry, loud call,” Laurie Parker-Stuart, a counsellor at the shelter who has since retired, testified.
“She was calling about Aisha,” Parker-Stuart said.
Dressed in a black pin-striped suit, her hair pulled back in a pony tail, Ladha sat attentively in the prisoner’s box after the judge declined a request to allow her to sit at her lawyer’s table.
The alleged victim is not allowed in the court until after she testifies, which is expected to be sometime next week.
Parker-Stuart described meeting the woman for the first time on June 3 or 4 of 2009, after receiving a call from a local multicultural group. While it was not a typical case of domestic abuse, she felt they could help.
“(She) was very closed. She was under stress,” Parker-Stuart testified.
“She was shut down. She was not dissimilar in demeanour from ever so many people I’ve met over the years, their first experience coming into a strange location directly from a difficult situation.”
She had no passport, and did not appear to have any connections to anyone, the judge heard. She spoke Swahili and broken English.
“(She) came with no money. She came with the clothes she wore. She really didn’t have anything,” Parker-Stuart said.
Gottardi asked the witness if she recalled police telling her that the woman could potentially obtain an extension of her immigration status if she were a victim of human trafficking, and whether she, in turn, passed that information on to the woman.
“In a really limited form. You realize, I don’t speak Swahili,” she said. “I would probably just encourage her that I would keep her safe and the police would not return her to a dangerous situation, that she could speak directly to them without fear.”
The shelter did put her in touch with police for help retrieving her passport and belongings, and Const. Kelly English testified that she went to the Ladha home. The passport was not there, she was told, but she went back the next day.
English described the home, which overlooks English Bay and has an assessed value of more than $4 million. The officer said she was led to a room about one metre wide, located off the pool room on the lower floor. The room had a bathroom en suite and a cabinet with a television on top. There was no window.
English filled a garbage bag with clothing and shoes, and left behind enough to fill another garbage bag, she said.
Defence lawyer Tony Paisana asked the officer what she observed about the alleged victim when they first met.
“I recall she appeared to be in good health,” English testified.
“Right. And she did not appear distressed at that time?”
“No,” she replied.
When RCMP announced charges in 2011, they said the African woman claimed Ladha forced her into servitude and gave her table scraps to survive. Ladha was charged in May 2011 and arrested at the Vancouver airport, as she returned to Canada from abroad.
Ladha, 57, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to one count of human trafficking, two counts of misrepresentation and an employment violation under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
Day two at the trial of a West Vancouver woman accused of human trafficking is now hearing details about the paperwork used by Mumtaz Ladha to bring the alleged victim to Canada.
An employee with Citizenship and Immigration Canada spent much of the morning reviewing guidelines and rules for the hiring of temporary foreign workers.
In this case, Ladha initally sought a visa application for a nanny.
Jessica Poon says that document filed on June 8th, 2008 was rejected because it didn’t contain enough specifics. A second application made later that month for a three- month live-in caregiver visa was approved.
Poon says housekeeping is not usually part of that job description.
