6 guilty of 39 deaths that suffocated in the truck

(Newser)
– With double the number of regular migrants, packed in a refrigerated container sealed for smuggling into the UK from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, truck owner Ronan Hughes warned driver Maurice Robinson in the text that he should stop and to give them air when he leaves the port in England. When he opened the container, they were already dead. Eamonn Harrison, a 23-year-old truck driver from Northern Ireland who brought the container to Zeebrugge, was found guilty of murder on Monday following the deaths of 39 Vietnamese immigrants, including two 15-year-olds, in october last year guardian reports. Robinson and Gheorghe Nica, the Romanian coordinator of the operation, pleaded guilty before the trial began. Hughes pleaded guilty to killing the man in August.

Two other members of the gang, Christopher Kennedy and Valentin Calota, were found guilty of smuggling people, reports AP. The gang, which recruited young truck drivers in Northern Ireland, also smuggled alcohol and cigarettes. During the 10-week trial in England, prosecutors said the gang charged the migrants about $ 17,000 for the trip, and the drivers paid about $ 2,000 per passenger. “They were treated worse than cattle,” said lead investigator Daniel Stoten. “They treated them like another commodity. It could have been drugs.” Harrison claimed he believed he had smuggled stolen truck parts. The defendants will be convicted in January, and those convicted of murder could receive life sentences. (When they started suffocating, the people trapped in the container called a Vietnamese emergency number and sent goodbye messages to their families.)

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