Sentences of up to 15 years in prison were handed down on Tuesday in Lille against 18 members of a vast network of smugglers in the Channel, mainly Iraqi-Kurdish. The investigation established that this network largely had control over migrant crossings to England from the north of France between 2020 and 2022.
In its deliberations, the court followed the prosecutor's requisitions by imposing the heaviest sentence, 15 years of imprisonment with a two-thirds security period and a committal warrant, against a 26-year-old Iraqi, Mirkhan Rasul. Suspected of having controlled the entire network of his prison cell in France, he was also given a permanent ban from French territory and a fine of 200,000 euros.
Dressed in a black quilted vest and sporting a dark beard, he calmly listened to the pronouncement of his sentence behind a glass box. Already convicted twice for aiding illegal residence, he was expelled from the hearing on the third day of the trial in October after threatening interpreters.
Permanent ban on the territory
The 17 other defendants, including a woman, were sentenced to sentences ranging from one to twelve years' imprisonment and a fine of up to 150,000 euros. All were sentenced to permanent ban from the territory. Arrest warrants were issued against nine of these defendants convicted in absentia. The court also ordered confiscation of property: several thousand euros in cash, a German sedan, the return of Dutch, British, Iraqi or Canadian identity papers.
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This trial was held between the end of September and the beginning of October, before the Specialized Interregional Jurisdiction (Jirs) of Lille. At the start of her requisitions, the prosecutor described a “sprawling case” with international ramifications. “The defendants are not volunteers helping their neighbors but merchants of death,” the prosecutor accused, describing canoes loaded with passengers “up to 15 times their theoretical capacity.”
Deadliest year
More than 50 searches led to the seizure of 1,200 life jackets, nearly 150 inflatable boats and 50 boat engines, during operations carried out jointly by France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. United, coordinated by the Europol and Eurojust agencies.
Since 2018, the phenomenon of illegal crossings of the Channel on small boats has continued to grow, with an ever-increasing number of migrants by canoe. Shipwrecks and fatal stampedes have made 2024 the deadliest year since the start of this phenomenon, with at least 60 deaths to date in attempted crossings.
The defendants have ten days to appeal. In January, members of the same network had already been sentenced to sentences ranging from 15 months to five years in prison and three others are to be tried in Belgium next year.
