Key takeaways:
- Six defendants were convicted of involuntary homicide and sentenced to six to 10 years in prison; seven received lesser sentences and one was acquitted.
- Thirty-one migrants died when their boat went down in the English Channel on November 24, 2021; two men survived.
- Seven French military personnel remain under investigation over allegations that they failed to respond to distress calls.
A Paris court has sentenced six people smugglers to between six and 10 years in prison for involuntary homicide after 31 migrants died in the English Channel in 2021, the deadliest disaster involving a small boat crossing from France to Britain.
Seven other defendants received sentences of up to four years for lesser offences, while one of the 14 people on trial was acquitted. The verdict followed a four-week trial into the crossing on November 24, 2021. Only two men survived.
The boat went down after distress calls were made to French and British coastguards. Those who died included a seven-year-old child and were mainly Iraqi Kurds, along with Afghans, Egyptians and Iranian Kurds. Four bodies were never recovered, according to Al Jazeera.
Prosecutors said the smugglers sent the migrants to sea in an overloaded boat that was unsuitable for open water and lacked appropriate life jackets. The BBC reported that the court established the six men belonged to two cooperating networks, one Iraqi Kurdish and the other Afghan, that organised the crossing and brought migrants to the departure point.
The court said the smugglers were driven by greed and were “profiting from the vulnerability of exile candidates”, Al Jazeera reported. Obaidullah Maroofkhel, who ran the Afghan network, received the longest sentence, 10 years. He was tried in his absence. Harem Ahmed Abawaker, described by the BBC as a close aide to the Iraqi Kurdish network’s alleged leader, received eight years. The alleged leader, identified as Bashdar, was not a defendant and is in custody in Iraq.
Relatives who travelled from Iraqi Kurdistan testified about the people they lost. Zana Marmand Muhammed said his younger brother Twana wanted to find work in England. “No-one in the family wanted him to leave, but we could not dissuade him,” he told the court.
Nabi Mustafa Mina said he had offered his 19-year-old son Zanyar help to marry, his house and half his salary to persuade him to stay. “But no, he said he wanted a better life, that he would get by somehow. I ran out of arguments,” he said.
In a statement read to the court, survivor Issa Omar said he did not have the strength to appear in person. “Since the wreck I have the impression that part of me disappeared beneath the waves.”
Family lawyer Matthieu Chirez said the verdict “comes as a relief for all the civil plaintiffs because it confirms the penal responsibility of the traffickers”. Another lawyer for the families, Emmanuel Daoud, said the deaths demanded “justice and prison time”.
A separate investigation is examining whether seven French military personnel failed to respond to the boat’s distress calls. All deny wrongdoing, Al Jazeera reported. No decision has yet been made on whether to recommend them for trial.
The sentences came as France and Britain ended a pilot arrangement under which Britain returned some migrants who had crossed the Channel to France and accepted people considered likely to receive asylum in exchange. The BBC said a little more than 1,000 migrants had moved between the countries under the year-long scheme. Britain’s Interior Ministry said new applications were no longer being accepted, according to Al Jazeera.
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