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Seven Convicted Over Deaths of 58 Illegal Chinese Migrants
A Dutch court in Rotterdam announced Friday that seven people have been sentenced to jail over the deaths of 58 illegal Chinese migrants who suffocated in an airtight truck on its way to Britain last June.
The Netherlands' court found them guilty of gross negligence over the deaths, but cleared them of manslaughter.
Among nine defendants, two ringleaders -- Gursel Ozcan and Haci Demir -- were sentenced to nine years in jail. Five others received sentences of between 30 months and seven years, while two were acquitted.
The judge said no punishment could make good the deaths of so many victims, and human trafficking led to the "abuse of the desperate."
Eight of the nine defendants belonged to a criminal organization involved in illegal trafficking of immigrants and forgery. One of the eight was acquitted of all charges along with a ninth person who had been accused only of forgery.
The prosecution at the Rotterdam court had requested prison sentences ranging from six months to 20 years. However, the defense argued that the authorities were partly responsible, since they had known about the trip but had not intervened because of an ongoing British investigation.
The immigrants were being smuggled in a Dutch truck aboard a ferry from Rotterdam via Belgium's Zeebrugge port to Dover when they suffocated.
The Dutch truck driver, Perry Wacker, was sentenced to 14 years in prison by a British court on April 5 after being convicted of manslaughter. In the same case, translator Ying Guo, 33, a Chinese living in Britain, was also jailed for six years for conspiring to smuggle illegal migrants into Britain.
The Dutch court heard that the same gang had organized at least three other crossings to Britain by illegal migrants in the six months leading up to the tragedy.
The 58 victims and two migrants who survived had traveled 12, 000 kilometers from China's Fujian province after paying thousands of pounds to gangs called Snakeheads. They were handed over to Dutch and Turkish criminals operating in the Netherlands before crossing the English Channel to Britain, according to court files.
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