According to newKerala Online paper, Metropolitan Magistrate Ashutosh Kumar will pass sentence on the eight women, hailing from Azerbaijan - a country in south western Asia and bordering the Caspian Sea - on May 16.

Two Indians, including the owner of the hotel and one of his employees, were also found guilty along with the foreign nationals of "earning a living out of prostitution", while a third one had been earlier discharged by a sessions court.

The foreigners, led by one Viktoria Tishanko had in 2004 lodged themselves on the third floor of Regent Hotel at Karol Bagh, where they would "entertain" visitors supplied by hotel owner Satbir Singh.

The police, acting on tip-off, on April one 2004, used a decoy posing as a customer to strike a deal with Singh, who readily showed him the girls on an advance payment of Rs 5,000.

The raid party, which was lying low till then, immediately moved in and arrested all the women, but Singh managed to escape and was arrested a month later.

On the directions given by the women, the police had also seized over Rs six lakh in cash, gold jewellery, foreign currency, eight passports from a iron safe kept in Singh's office at the hotel.

The probe into the case had revealed that Singh would "call in foreign prostitutes to the hotel, which was in fact a brothel".

Subsequently, a case was registered against all the accused under the Immoral Trafficking (Prevention)Act.

/www.newkerala.com/