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Plane with Indian passengers leaves France after police release

A plane with close to 300 Indian passengers detained near Paris over suspicions of human trafficking took off Monday for Mumbai after being cleared for departure by French police, an AFP reporter said.

Published: 26 December 2023 08:29 CET
Airbus A340
French customs officers stand next to a customs car with an Airbus A340 in the background which was grounded on the tarmac since December 21 over suspected "human trafficking", at the Vatry airport, north-eastern France on December 25, 2023. Photo by FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI / AFP

The Airbus A340 carrying 303 Indians had been bound for Nicaragua when it was detained last Thursday at Vatry airport, east of Paris, where it had stopped for refuelling.

It had arrived from Dubai, and there was an anonymous tip-off that it was carrying potential victims of human trafficking.

Of the original 303 people on the passenger list, 276 were on the plane that took off just before 3:00 pm (1400 GMT).

Among the passengers staying behind were two people questioned by French police over suspected people trafficking, but a judicial source said they had now been released after establishing that the 303 passengers had boarded the plane of their own free will.

Their suspects’ release came because “the investigating judge was able to resist media pressure in this case”, said their lawyer, Salome Cohen.

The others, 25 people of whom two are minors, have sought asylum in France, the prefecture said. Their applications would be processed at Charles-de-Gaulle airport.

After questioning the passengers for two days, French prosecutors on Sunday gave the go-ahead for the plane to leave.

Put up at the airport

A source close to the inquiry told AFP that the Indians were likely workers in the United Arab Emirates who had been bound for Nicaragua as a jumping off spot for the United States or Canada.

The passengers of the flight, operated by Romanian company Legend Airlines, were put up at the airport during the investigation.

Beds, toilets and showers were installed, the local prefecture said, while police have prevented press and outsiders from entering the airport.

The passengers included 11 unaccompanied minors, according to Paris prosecutors.

The Indian embassy in Paris Saturday posted on X that “embassy consular staff” were on site to work with French authorities “for the welfare” of detained passengers for an “early resolution of the situation”.

The authorisation for the plane to leave came after a French court ruled that any further detention of three of the passengers would be illegal.

But Genevieve Colas, coordinator at the Secours Catholique-Caritas association, said the release of the plane had “surprised” her.

“What if they really are victims of people trafficking,” she asked. “Then it wouldn’t be right to just let them take off to another country.”

The 30 crew members were not detained. Some handled the Dubai-Vatry leg, and others were to take over for the flight to Managua. According to Flightradar24, Legend Airlines has just four planes.

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CRIME

Suspects in Paris Holocaust memorial defacement fled abroad: prosecutors

French police have tracked three suspects in last week's defacement of the Paris Holocaust memorial across the border into Belgium, prosecutors said.

Published: 22 May 2024 16:32 CEST
Suspects in Paris Holocaust memorial defacement fled abroad: prosecutors

The suspects were caught on security footage as they moved through Paris before “departing for Belgium from the Bercy bus station” in southeast Paris, prosecutors said.

Investigators added that the suspects’ “reservations had been made from Bulgaria”.

An investigation was launched after the memorial was vandalised with anti-Semitic image on the anniversary of the first major round-up of French Jews under the Nazis in 1941.

On May 14, red hands were found daubed on the Wall of the Righteous at the Paris Holocaust memorial, which lists 3,900 people honoured for saving Jews during the Nazi occupation of France in World War Two.

Prosecutors are investigating damage to a protected historical building for national, ethnic, racial or religious motives.

Similar tags were found elsewhere in the Marais district of central Paris, historically a centre of French Jewish life.

The hands echoed imagery used earlier this month by students demonstrating for a ceasefire in Israel’s campaign against the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

Their discovery prompted a new wave of outrage over anti-Semitism.

“The Wall of the Righteous at the Shoah (Holocaust) Memorial was vandalised overnight,” Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo said in a statement, calling it an “unspeakable act”.

It was “despicable” to target the Holocaust Memorial, Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) wrote on X, formerly Twitter, calling the act a, “hateful rallying cry against Jews”.

French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the act as one of “odious anti-Semitism”.

The vandalism “damages the memory” both of those who saved Jews in the Holocaust and the victims, he wrote on X.

“The (French) Republic, as always, will remain steadfast in the face of odious anti-Semitism,” he added.

Around 10 other spots, including schools and nurseries, around the historic Marais district home to many Jews were similarly tagged, central Paris district mayor Ariel Weil told AFP.

France has the largest Jewish population of any country outside Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

The country has been on high alert for anti-Semitic acts since Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel and the state’s campaign of reprisals in Gaza in the months since.

In February, a French source told AFP that Paris’s internal security service believed Russia’s FSB security service was behind an October graffiti campaign tagging stars of David on Paris buildings.

A Moldovan couple was arrested in the case.

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