A Saudi Arabian royal family living in Falls
Church, Virginia is being accused of forcing
a woman into slavery.
The lawsuit says the woman worked more than
15 hours a day.
She wasn't allowed to leave the royal family's
home without supervision, and she was repeatedly
called a whore, a donkey, colored and garbage.
She's initiated this lawsuit and she's got
some real precedent for this.
First of all, here's the problem, they've
been seeing in these royal family or royal
diplomat kind of cases is the immunity, that
they have diplomatic immunity.
Now the good news is, in the UK, the Supreme
Court in the UK said we don't care about diplomatic
immunity on this, when it comes to these civil
kinds of issues, especially where it comes
to something that they almost characterized
as slavery.
This woman was being held there in the UK,
the same way that this woman was held.
She was Filipino and the Supreme Court went
a long way to say you know what?
We're going to find a way around this and
they did.
What is your take on this case?
I guess what bothers me most about it is the
times we've given the Saudis so many breaks.
I mean, really Peter, they killed 3,000 people.
Their money financed the group that killed
3,000 Americans on American soil.
So what do we do?
We help them get out of the country.
Remember this whole story?
They sneak out of the country.
Nobody can find out where they are.
The whole royal family is moved back home
with the CIA, after we know or are pretty
darn sure that the money, the financing actually
came from Saudi Arabia.
We got to do something about having ...
It's an easy answer, really.
I mean if you have a US citizen or somebody
that resides in the US, even if it's on a
work visa, versus diplomatic immunity, you
weigh that out.
Which one of those deserves protection?
There is absolutely no way we can say that
diplomatic immunity applies to an otherwise
...
Act of slavery.
An act of slavery.
Well what ... So that's ... Okay.
That should seem like ...
That's the narrow exception at this point.
Right.
At least in the UK, they said we're going
to make some exceptions, and this exception
seems to be they granted limited residential
immunity.
That's what they called it.
They said, you got residential immunity but
it's limited.
Right.
The thing that they carved out that's very
obvious here is they carved out, you know
where it comes to slavery, we're not really
going to give you any kind of breaks.
But this one in the US, this is going to be
a good test.
Here's a woman, she was basically held as
a slave, and so she's brought the lawsuit
against the Saudi royal family.
As a matter of fact, before an investigation
could even take place, it seemed like they
were moved by the government, moved them somewhere
else.
It's this relationship with Saudi Arabia that
we have to make inroads to.
You know our law firm, obviously, is bringing
a lawsuit against the bank that washed money
for terrorists.
The right to be able to bring those types
of cases only came after Congress said, you
know what?
We're kind of pushing this a little far.
Yes, we have this relationship with Saudi
Arabia.
They have money invested in the United States.
We get petroleum, fossil fuel products from
the, but we're going to have to start taking
a real look, when we know that Saudi Arabia
financed the money that killed 3,000 Americans
in this country, and the families have brought
lawsuits.
They should be able to make a claim to that
money.
That's what Congress did.
Congress said yeah.
Because you don't get special protections
because you're from Saudi Arabia, your diplomatic
immunity, but quite frankly, it shouldn't
matter where you're from.
At the end of the day, we have to protect
basic human rights.
It doesn't matter who it is.
But from a legal stand, from pure legal standpoint.
Sure.
We're analyzing this as a legal show.
The only way it's going to take place in little
...
Steps.
In little cuts.
Right.
Little steps.
Like the UK said ...
Just one step, one little step a time like
a sandbar's built.
Exactly.
So the UK said our first little step is to
say, you know, we're not granting unlimited
immunity in a residential, limited residential
situation, and we're also factoring in that
this is nothing short of slavery.
We're cutting some things out.
They looked at the fact that in the UK, there
were 17,000 domestic workers.
These complaints are coming up regularly where
it comes to these folks working for Saudi
families.
This wasn't just a unique, one-off kind of
case.
This Filipino woman in the UK, this wasn't
one-off.
The same way in the United States.
Right.
This is not a unique situation, and we need
to start considering ...
Exceptions.
If you can't embrace the entire thing, you
start with exceptions.
Right.
You start saying, well there's some very suspect
classifications that we need to look at as
we monitor this.
One is, suspect classification was slavery.
Can we characterize, was slavery involved?
The other suspect classification, that Congress
already gave us, is was terrorism involved?
Can we characterize the conduct as terrorism.
We need to keep chipping away at this type
of immunity because it is a disaster.
Look these folks think that they're just above
the law.
Can you imagine telling this woman that she's
a whore, she's colored, garbage, and she's
held in this home, right there in Falls Church,
Virginia.
Yeah.
Where she can't even leave the house.
Right.
