THE owner of a restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui's notorious Chungking Mansions was yesterday given an eight-month prison sentence for keeping an illegal worker in slave-like conditions for 10 months.
Magistrate Ian Carlson accepted that Kamrul Haidar Choudhury, 36, employed an illegal worker as a cook from December 1994 until last month, seven days a week, for 16 or more hours a day, and paid him a total of just $3,000.
'You had him secreted in your restaurant, in that warren that is Chungking Mansions, for 10 months,' said Mr Carlson.
'There is a very grave element of exploitation.' Choudhury was being tried on one count of employing someone who could not be legally employed, but Mr Carlson said he was taking into account the cook's working conditions in setting the sentence, one of the highest given for the offence.
The magistrate said Choudhury had hired Khasruz Zaman, 30, who was in Hong Kong on a seven-day tourist visa.
After promising Zaman $2,000 a month, Choudhury took his passport and return air ticket to Bangladesh, claiming he needed them to apply for a Hong Kong ID card, and set him to work in the kitchen of the restaurant, the Mumtaj Mahal Club in Block C, 12th floor, Chungking Mansions.
When interviewed by the South China Morning Post shortly before the police raided the restaurant on September 27, the cook said he had not left Chungking Mansions for 10 months.
