Mar 15, 2006 8:20 pm US/Mountain
Couple Charged In Slavery Case Claim Surveillance
DENVER (AP) ―
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Homaidan Al-Turki and his wife are accused of keeping a nanny as their personal slave.
CBS4
A Saudi couple charged with keeping a nanny as a virtual slave for four years asked a judge Wednesday to force prosecutors to turn over any information they obtained through allegedly illegal surveillance.
Attorneys for Homaidan Al-Turki and his wife, Sarah Khonaizan, said in a court filing that their clients have obtained the license-plate numbers of seven cars that had been parked outside their Aurora home or that had followed them when they left their house in the past two months.
On one occasion, a car followed the family from Aurora to Boulder and back on Feb. 24, the filing said.
Prosecutors did not immediately return a call.
In the filing, defense attorney John Richilano said three of the license plate numbers did not match the name and address on registration records, and three were not registered with state or county agencies. Federal agents can obtain such license plates, he wrote. The seventh license plate was for a car owned by a rental agency, the filing said.
Al-Turki and Khonaizan both are under court-ordered electronic monitoring, and the federal investigation of them should have been complete after they were indicted last year, Richilano wrote.
"Thus, the aggressive and blatant continued surveillance of the family is an unnecessary attempt to intimidate the family and make them feel threatened," he wrote.
Al-Turki and his wife face an Oct. 23 trial on federal charges of forced labor, involuntary servitude and harboring an illegal immigrant. They also face a June 12 trial in Arapahoe County District Court on charges of kidnapping, false imprisonment and extortion, and Al-Turki faces additional state charges of sexual assault.
State and federal prosecutors alleged Al-Turki sexually abused the nanny, an Indonesian immigrant, repeatedly while he and his wife required her to cook, clean and provide child care for the equivalent of $2 per day.
(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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