Indian-origin couple in Australia who enslaved Tamil woman for 8 years, face fresh penalties

Melbourne: An Indian-origin couple already serving prison sentences in Australia for enslaving an Indian woman for eight years has been hit with fresh financial penalties and ordered to forfeit the proceeds from the sale of their home, authorities have confirmed.

Kandasamy Kannan, 61, and his wife, Kumuthini Kannan, 58, have been ordered to pay a combined AUD 140,000 (over Rs 8 crore) in penalties to the state, in addition to forfeiting the proceeds from their Mount Waverley property, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said in a statement on Friday.

The couple were convicted in 2021 of keeping a woman in domestic servitude at their home after she arrived from India on a tourist visa in 2007. Kumuthini was sentenced to eight years in prison, while Kandasamy received six years.

According to the AFP, the Criminal Assets Confiscation Taskforce (CACT) restrained the couple’s home in 2016 after they were charged with slavery offences. The house was sold for AUD 1.4 million the same year, and the couple’s remaining equity of around AUD 475,000 was held by the Official Trustee before being formally forfeited in 2022.

In 2023, approximately AUD 485,000 was granted to the victim as an ex gratia payment.

Further penalties were imposed in October this year, with Kumuthini agreeing to pay AUD 100,000 and Kandasamy AUD 40,000, in addition to the forfeited assets and accrued interest.

Eight years of enslavement led to collapse in 2015

According to court documents from the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP), the victim, who the jury found had been treated as the Kannans’ slave, travelled from Tamil Nadu to Melbourne in 2007 on a one-month tourist visa after an oral agreement was made regarding domestic work.

The couple organised her travel and visa, and confiscated her passport upon arrival. She lived with the family for eight years, caring for their children and carrying out household chores without pay.

In July 2015, emergency services were called to the Kannans’ home, where paramedics found the victim lying barely conscious in a pool of urine on the bathroom floor. She weighed just 40 kilograms and was suffering from hypothermia, urinary sepsis, and untreated diabetes.

Police said the couple provided false and conflicting accounts about her identity and their relationship with her, prompting the case to be referred to the AFP’s Human Trafficking Team.

The victim’s family in India later contacted the Australian and Indian High Commissions, leading Victoria Police to intervene. The woman was then found hospitalised under a false name.

A search of the Kannans’ home was carried out in October 2015, and the couple were arrested in September 2016.

During the trial, the victim testified that she had been verbally and physically abused, confined to the house for years, and even prevented from contacting her family except in the couple’s presence. She also told the court that the Kannans repeatedly refused her requests to return to India.

PTI