A man aged 40 was sentenced to 13 years in jail for trafficking in human beings. He recruited two men whom he obliged to work for years at his sheepfold outside a village in Briceni district, beating them, IPN reports.

According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the offender recruited a man to work as a shepherd. This worked for 12 hours a day without a break and was forced to also do other domestic work. Later, the culprit started to use physical and mental violence against the man in order to make him work further. He also invented different pretexts for not paying the victim.

He then found one more victim. Another man was exploited as a shepherd during about four years according to the same scenario.

The man was sentenced to 13 years in jail. He denied any wrongdoing.

The sentence is not yet final and can be challenged in the Balti Appeals Court.