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CRIME

French court convicts 14 of migrant smuggling

A court in northern France jailed 14 members of a migrant smuggling ring

Published: 20 January 2023 09:24 CET
French court convicts 14 of migrant smuggling
Migrants boarding a people smuggler's boat on a beach near Dunkirk. (Photo by Sameer Al-DOUMY / AFP)

A court in northern France has sentenced 14 Sri Lankan nationals to prison for operating a migrant smuggling ring across Europe, as authorities across the continent try to crack down on the lucrative criminal networks.

The main suspect, accused of overseeing the operation from a grocery store in the village of Serifontaine, was handed a four-year prison term, with one year suspended.

Investigators determined that he set the prices and routes for moving migrants from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh across the continent from Ukraine, with the help of bribes to officials in Eastern Europe.

Another suspect, who is based in Britain but fighting extradition requests, was given a five-year sentence by the court in Beauvais, while the others were given lesser prison terms.

Smuggling gangs have flourished as increasing numbers of migrants have headed for Europe in recent years, with many hoping to cross the English Channel to Britain.

More than 45,000 migrants crossed the Channel from mainland Europe in 2022, surpassing the previous year’s record by more than 17,000, according to British government figures.

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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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