Dubai Ruler Sued in U.S. over Enslaving Small Boys

  Sept. 14, 2006 -- (ABC) The ruler of Dubai came to Kentucky to buy race horses but ended up being served with a lawsuit alleging he enslaved thousands of small boys as camel jockeys.

  Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum was served Monday with the court papers while attending a horse show in Lexington, Ky., where he spent an estimated $30 million on thoroughbred yearlings.

  The lawsuit, brought as a class action, alleged Sheikh Mohammed and his brother were part of a conspiracy "to buy boys in the slave trade, hold them in bondage in brutal camps in the desert" as part of a flourishing camel racing sport among Arab sheikhs.

  The lawsuit calls it "one of the greatest humanitarian crimes of the last 50 years," involving thousands of boys as young as four who were prized because they weighed less than 44 pounds.

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