A Vietnamese Leisure Clothing employee told the court this afternoon that in eight months working there, she earned €2,681, of which she was only given €150 every two months. 

Van Hoang Thi Cam said she got to know about Leisure Clothing through an agency in her home country. She said she had been promised a basic wage of €685 a month to work eight hours a day, six days a week. 

She told Magistrate Carol Peralta that she was told this wage did not include any overtime and other allowances related to her performance and depended on production. 

However, in the eight months she worked for the company, she worked between 7am and 9.30pm, without getting paid for overtime. She received €150 every two months and had €2,061 deposited in the company's safe.

Ms Van also said that she had paid the Vietnamese agent $1,000 and then another $2,500 to land the job. 

Asked about the contracts she had signed, she said: "First I was given a sample of the contract to read and then the woman gave me the actual contract with all the conditions but I was not given a copy of it." 

Some two months later, as she was about to board the plane to come to Malta, the woman gave her another contract to sign, this time in Vietnamese, but she did not have much time to read through it as she was told to hurry. The woman told her there was something wrong with the first contract, which was in Chinese. 

She said that at the time she was earning €200 a month with the job she had. 

"When the woman promised me this job with a high salary, I discussed it with my family and borrowed money to be able to pay the woman to secure this placement for this good job," she said. 

She added that if she did not pay the entire amount back within three years, she will lose everything she owned, including her house in Vietnam. 

She was testifying in the complication of evidence against Bin Han, 46, from San Gwann and Jia Liu, 31, from Birzebbuga, who stand charged with human trafficking and the exploitation of Chinese and Vietnamese people working for their company based in Bulebel.

Mr Bin, who has Maltese nationality, is the company's managing director while Mr Liu is the marketing director. He is Chinese but has been living in Malta for four years.

They are also charged with misappropriating the employees' wages, failing to pay the employees their wages, overtime and allowances and failing to comply with employment conditions.

Prodded by the court, the witness said that she once approached Mr Bin to ask why the conditions listed in the contract she had signed in Vietnam were different to the long hours she had to work in Malta. She said he had told her that he was not interested in what she signed in Vietnam. 

When she asked him why they kept her passport, she said he told her that this was the law in Malta. 

Asked by the court about the whether she had agreed to a clause in her contract to withhold part of her wage, Ms Van explained that she was given €150 every two months as "pocket money". The rest was kept by the company. 

The case continues next week when the prosecution is expected to get more witnesses to prove that there was enough evidence for the two Leisure Clothing directors to be indicted. 

Police Inspector Joseph Busuttil prosecuted. Lawyers Karl Briffa, Katrine Camilleri, Michael Camilleri appeared parte civile for the workers. Lawyers Edward Gatt and Pio Valletta appeared for the company directors.