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IMMIGRATION

Frenchman cleared of charges for aiding migrants

A French court on Wednesday scrapped all charges against a man who helped migrants enter the country illegally, the final chapter in a groundbreaking case that defined so-called "crimes of solidarity".

Frenchman cleared of charges for aiding migrants
Lyon's Court of Appeal acquitted Cédric Herrou over helping migrants cross Alps. Photo: AFP

Cedric Herrou, an olive farmer in southern France who helped about 200 migrants cross the border from Italy, was given a four-month suspended sentence in August 2017.

He had brought the destitute migrants home and set up a camp for them. He was also convicted of sheltering some 50 Eritreans in a disused railway building.

READ MORE: 'Heroic' farmer faces prison for helping migrants into France

France's Constitutional Council later said Herrou's actions were not a crime under the “principle of fraternity” as enshrined in France's motto “Liberty, Egality, Fraternity.”

The council, which evaluates the validity of French laws, ruled that people cannot be prosecuted for “crimes of solidarity”.

In December 2018, the Cour de Cassation – France's court of final appeal – overturned Herrou's conviction and sent the case back to the appeals court in the city of Lyon which on Wednesday voided all charges.

“Reason and the law has triumphed,” said Sabrina Goldman, a lawyer on the case.

“Why focus on someone who did nothing but help? How can what he did be regarded as anything other than a humanitarian act?”

Rights body Amnesty International said the ruling will have implications throughout Europe for the criminalisation of “acts of solidarity”.

“Cedric Herrou did nothing wrong, he simply showed compassion towards people abandoned in dire conditions by European states,” Amnesty's Rym Khadhraoui said in a statement.

“Whilst it is a relief that Cedric Herrou's ordeal is now over, he should never have been charged in the first place.”

French law should now be amended to ensure only people smuggling, which entails a material benefit, is regarded as an offence, and not humanitarian assistance, Khadhraoui added.

Member comments

  1. Another anarchist let off the hook! The migrants he helped illegally were not escaping from a war zone and did not require any ‘humanitarian’ assistance. They are merely economic migrants, and there are legal ways of getting into France and working here. We all have done it. I have done it.

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CRIME

Germany mulls expulsions to Afghanistan after knife attack

Germany said Tuesday it was considering allowing deportations to Afghanistan, after an asylum seeker from the country injured five and killed a police officer in a knife attack.

Germany mulls expulsions to Afghanistan after knife attack

Officials had been carrying out an “intensive review for several months… to allow the deportation of serious criminals and dangerous individuals to Afghanistan”, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told journalists.

“It is clear to me that people who pose a potential threat to Germany’s security must be deported quickly,” Faeser said.

“That is why we are doing everything possible to find ways to deport criminals and dangerous people to both Syria and Afghanistan,” she said.

Deportations to Afghanistan from Germany have been completely stopped since the Taliban retook power in 2021.

But a debate over resuming expulsions has resurged after a 25-year-old Afghan was accused of attacking people with a knife at an anti-Islam rally in the western city of Mannheim on Friday.

A police officer, 29, died on Sunday after being repeatedly stabbed as he tried to intervene in the attack.

Five people taking part in a rally organised by Pax Europa, a campaign group against radical Islam, were also wounded.

Friday’s brutal attack has inflamed a public debate over immigration in the run up to European elections and prompted calls to expand efforts to expel criminals.

READ ALSO: Tensions high in Mannheim after knife attack claims life of policeman

The suspect, named in the media as Sulaiman Ataee, came to Germany as a refugee in March 2013, according to reports.

Ataee, who arrived in the country with his brother at the age of only 14, was initially refused asylum but was not deported because of his age, according to German daily Bild.

Ataee subsequently went to school in Germany, and married a German woman of Turkish origin in 2019, with whom he has two children, according to the Spiegel weekly.

Per the reports, Ataee was not seen by authorities as a risk and did not appear to neighbours at his home in Heppenheim as an extremist.

Anti-terrorism prosecutors on Monday took over the investigation into the incident, as they looked to establish a motive.

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