Chinese Nationals charged with Human Trafficking and Child Labour @KASIBCNEWS


Chinese Nationals charged with Human Trafficking and Child Labour @KASIBCNEWS 


The defence in the trial of seven Chinese nationals charged with human trafficking and child labour yesterday (4 October) closed its case after calling its last witness to take a stand.


In the trial the defence closed its case after having only called accused number one to testify.

Amil Thousaad (27), a Malawian national who took a brief stand in Gauteng Division of the High Court (Johannesburg) as a defence witness on Wednesday continued with his testimony yesterday. On Wednesday proceedings had to be brought to a halt after Thousaad took an oath and told the Court that he was comfortable in testifying in English.

No sooner had he taken the stand he was battling to give testimony and Court decided to enlist the services of a Chichewe interpreter. Thousaad continued on his testimony on his association with the Chinese, whom he said he had been working for since 2018, when he arrived in South Africa.

Trousaad was testifying in the Chinese trial of: Kevin Tsao Shu-Uei, Chen Hui, Qin Li, Jiaqing Zhou, Ma Biao, Dai Junying, and Zhang Zhilian. The accused are facing schedule six offences.

The Chinese are facing counts of human trafficking, contravention of Immigration Act, kidnapping, pointing a firearm, debt bondage, benefitting from the services of a victim of trafficking, conduct that facilitates trafficking, illegally assisting person(s) to remain in South Africa, and failure to comply with duties of an employer.

The seven were arrested on 12 November 2019 in a joint operation carried out at their premises of a company called Beautiful City Pty Ltd based at Village Deep in Johannesburg. 

The joint inspection blitz was carried out by the Department of Employment and Labour’s Inspection and Enforcement Services (IES) branch together with the South African Police Service (SAPS)/ Hawks Unit and the Department of Home Affairs.

The joint operation uncovered illegal immigrants some of whom were minors working under horror conditions and kept in the locked premises of a factory called Beautiful City. The factory produced cotton fibre sheets.


Thousaad had told the Court that he first worked in a Chinese factory located at Croesus in Johannesburg and later joined Beautiful City when it started operations in Faraday. He explained operations of the factory and that of his role working as a “machine fixer” and also doing menial tasks.


He also testified that on the day of joint inspection blitz he was out at the factory shop only to come back and the premises were full of police and other government officials.



Prosecutor, Valencia Dube accused Thousaad of dishonesty and giving testimony full of hearsay. She said Thousaad was a “chameleon” who constantly changes his testimony to suit the situation.


Five of the accused are out on bail and the other two (accused number two and seven) are in custody for violating their bail conditions – by trying to skip the country.


Both the State and the defence have concluded their cases. The matter has been postponed to 20 November 2024 for closing arguments.




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