France to try 19 men over 2019 migrant lorry deaths: report

France is to try 19 men over a people-smuggling plot that led to the 2019 deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants in the back of a lorry, a source familiar with the matter has said.

Published: 24 May 2023 12:26 CEST

France to try 19 men over 2019 migrant lorry deaths: report

An image released by Essex Police showing the 39 Vietnamese victims of a people smuggling plot found dead in the back of a lorry in 2019. (Photo by Essex Police / AFP)

The trial is the latest of several in Europe over the tragedy.

The migrants – the youngest of whom were two 15-year-old boys – suffocated in a refrigerated container as they were being transported across the Channel to what they had hoped would be new lives in Britain.

Their bodies were discovered inside the sealed unit at a port near London in October 2019.

French investigating magistrates on Tuesday ordered the trial of 19 suspects aged 21 to 58 over the tragedy, the source told the AFP news agency.

A transnational investigation points to the suspects – of Vietnamese, French, Chinese, Algerian and Moroccan origin – being part of a large network smuggling people from Vietnam to Europe, it said.

They stand accused of organising the transport of migrants and driving taxis or owning flats where they could hide them in the Paris region, it added.

According to wiretapped phone calls, these men referred to their victims as “merchandise” or even “chickens”.

They will all be tried for enabling the illegal entry and stay of foreigners on French territory and banding together with a view to committing crimes, which could carry up to 10 years in jail, the source said.

Four will also be judged for manslaughter for failing to ensure duty of care during the smuggling operation, which could lead to punishment of three myears behind bars.

The cross-border probe revealed that migrants were loaded into a truck in northern France, before being driven to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge to cross the Channel.

The tragedy shone a spotlight on the extraordinary dangers migrants are willing to risk to reach Britain, with some paying smugglers up to $40,000 for the perilous journey.

Post-mortem tests found the victims died from lack of oxygen and overheating, and one sent a poignant text message to her family in Vietnam as she lay dying in the truck.

The victims came from poor and remote corners of central Vietnam, a hotspot for people willing to embark on dangerous journeys in the hope of a better future abroad.

Many are smuggled illegally through Russia or China, often left owing huge sums to their traffickers and ending up working on cannabis farms or in nail salons.

There was no immediate date set for the French trial, which follows several convictions in other countries.

A Belgian court last year sentenced a Vietnamese man to 15 years in prison after convicting him of being a ringleader in the trafficking operation.

A British judge in 2021 convicted two men on 39 counts of manslaughter over the lorry tragedy, jailing them for 27 and 20 years. He also handed two truck drivers 13-year and 18-year sentences.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

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

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.